In Defense of the Native Sea Lions of the Columbia River Gorge

In Defense of the Native Sea Lions of the Columbia River Gorge The Poor Sea Lions Are Being Scapegoated for Destroying Fish Runs. Few Come to Their Defense with Wildlife Authorities Out to Kill Them Lex Loeb Contributor Network . The poor sea lions of the Columbia gorge are being threatened even though all of them are protected species by law. What is strange is how the local top of the food chain animal that would be considered a natural wonder anywhere else is getting is being scapegoated for eating some salmon. This even in a time when , even in spite of the dams some Salmon run were back to pre-salmon wheel records! All the nonsense about the dams causing salmon runs to decline instantly proved to be nonsense. The charts showing salmon numbers were based on the number of cans of salmon that the canneries along the Columbia packed and got charged a tax on. The measurements were never as accurate as the dam salmon ladder passage counters now in service. In defense of the sea lions is they were native. The Indians who occupied the area did actually make clothing items out of them. That means they were hunted and controlled by the Indians but not removed the way the wildlife experts say they now have to do it. The Indians would have wanted to keep them around for their economic value. The various articles made out of Columbia Gorge sea line skins can be seen in museum collections including purses and boots. We know the sea lions are not new. We also know that they have found the fish ladders where the salmon are easy prey. This was true back in the old days too as the wildlife people seem to have forgotten that the cascades and falls on the Columbia made passage difficult for salmon and gave the sea lions almost the same advantage. The Indians did the same thing the sea lions did fishing for salmon at the cascades and falls where the salmon had were channeled . Recently the Oregonian , a local newspaper, has been making a fuss about a small dam on a smaller river that was blown up to make way wild river salmon runs and they show pictures of the great success that the salmon just pass though but not the before when the salmon happily used the salmon ladder and green hydro electric power was also generated. It is such unfair reporting. The same thing has happened with the scapegoating of the poor sea lions. Sea lions do other good. The river is over run with other unliked species like the non native introduced shad and as it happens the sea lions eat lots of shad. Here is a possible solution to saving the sea lions and that is to management as in wildlife management by putting them on display at the dam in something like a zoo when the salmon are running and when the shad are a big problem letting them out to feast. The ancient manner house verse about little boy blue is all about managing the farm animals . You don't put your animals in the corn field you direct them elsewhere or you loose. What is the hurry to kill the sea lions? The fishermen hate them. But that is because of rules by government that prevent them from catching salmon not because of salmon that the animals actually ate. The real problem is government management and government propaganda about cause and effect. If we all believed the nonsense that the dams and the temperature of the water behind the dams were causing salmon runs to decline then the record salmon runs never should have happened again but they did. That is a big problem for the science of the authorities. The authorities then stared to back peddle once their old theories were dashed as they still want to be in power and keep their jobs. But now leaving the same old people in power is going to destroy the wonderful sea lions native to the river for no damn good reason, at least not a reason that they can really prove. They pick and chose their variables in making their scientific models and leave out all the rest and then they wonder how the impossible can happen as if their model somehow dictates how reality should be. Alice needs to be in their offices to find wonderland and the sea lions take the hit. Then comes the next phase. This is alice in wonderland for sea lions who don't get to represent themselves in court. The know it all junk science lawyers in junk science wilderness courts. These guys take the junk science and then go to a judge and convince him there is "scientific consensus" and then the poor sea lions are doomed. They get the death sentence, It seem that the sea lions should get the local zoo treatment and get released in the shad cycle. They could also be fed the guts of gutted salmons which they probably love . It would not hurt to turn some of the great academic wild life biologists who enjoy harassing them and killing them into sea lion herders and zoo keepers because then they would actually have something to do beyond just fabricating evidence. There is something else that needs to be done and that is to develop fish farming on the coast the way its done in Canada and Chile because this will do more to save native species from deep sea netting than worrying about some 80 sea lions just doing what nature intended. .