Sea lion killings halt programme - May 06, 2008
More news in the ongoing battle between sea lions, salmon, and people: six sea lions have been found shot in Oregon, presumably as a result of annoyed fishermen blaming the animals for a lack of fish (Reuters; NY Times).
We have written about this issue before: in January, US federal officials recommended killing about 30 ‘nuisance’ sea lions a year in this river, to keep them from gobbling up salmon. Officials went ahead with that, but in the face of a lawsuit from the Humane Society they have been instead trapping animals and transporting them to nearby zoos. It looks like someone took advantage of these traps to shoot the captive animals before they could be spirited away.
The trapping programme has been entirely put on hold while the killings are "investigated by Washington, Oregon and our fish cops", National Marine Fisheries Service spokesman Brian Gorman told Reuters.
From the archive:
While sea lions in Oregon seem to be to blame for declining fish stocks, the opposite may be true in Alaska, where declines in fish seem to be have caused sea lion populations to crash (see Conservation biology: Is this any way to save a species?). Working out what-is-eating-what in this ecosystem, and how one crash causes another, can be a thorny issue (see Where have all the seals gone?).
Comments
As reported in the Oregonian newspaper, it turns out that the sea lions were not shot. Apparently, an unidentified malfunction of the cage doors caused the sea lions to drown.
Posted by: Rick Boney | May 30, 2008 01:02 AM