Posted on 05/14/2008 4:24:03 PM PDT by jazusamo
Heat prostration probably killed six sea lions enclosed within a pair of floating cages near Bonneville Dam a week and a half ago, according to federal authorities.
The disclosure on Wednesday lends new insight - while raising new questions - over the puzzling deaths of four California sea lions and two threatened Steller sea lions sometime between 7 p.m. May 3 and the time they were discovered in the floating docks at 11:30 a.m. Sunday, May 4.
The National Marine Fisheries Service reported Wednesday that necropsies on all six animals are consistent with death from heat prostration - even though air temperatures at the time were mild. Vancouver's high for May 4 was 73 degrees, and it only reached 59 degrees on May 3.
And sea lions typically haul out of the water for much longer periods of time than was the case for the dead animals at Bonneville.
"It's something that we don't normally see," said Steve Jeffries, marine mammal specialist for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife in Tacoma. "These animals rest in the hot sun for hours."
However, he said the animals may have become stressed while trapped in the cages.
"They're like a big insulative blanket," Jeffries said, referring to the animals' blubber. "If they can't dissipate their heat because they're in a trap, it's just like a person in heat distress. If you can't cool down, you're going to go the wrong way."
The agency reported that more conclusive results may be available once studies of tissue samples taken from the dead animals are completed in about 10 days. Meanwhile, the investigation by the Washington and Oregon departments of fish and wildlife, NMFS and the Army Corps of Engineers continues.
The animals died in floating docks set up by state authorities to trap and relocate sea lions that had been eating a growing number of Endangered Species Act-protected salmon below Bonneville Dam. A pair of trap doors had been triggered sometime late that Saturday night or early Sunday, raising the possibility that someone manually closed the doors as the animals lounged on a side-by-side pair of floating docks. (The doors normally remained open, allowing the sea lions to freely come and go until state authorities triggered the doors to capture the pinnipeds.)
Last week, authorities backed off initial reports that the animals had been shot.
Officials were also considering the possibility that the doors closed on their own due to fluctuating river levels below the dam.
"How did the trap doors close, and both at the same time?" said Sandra Jonker, regional wildlife biologist for the WDFW in Vancouver. "There are just so many questions that we're trying to find the answers to."
In the meantime the HSUS forced a halt to the relocation of the salmon eaters.
Global Warming did it.
Curse those SUV’s.
Whatever happened to migrating to better climes? Survival of the fittest?
Maybe if they would just explain to the sea lions that they can’t eat salmon anymore, that’d do the trick.
I’m surprised the writer left that out. :)
There is no perfect system that someone in government can't screw up... and without personal consequences.
Heat prostration? At night in the northwest?
It was between 7pm and 10:30am the next morning. I think they need to guess again.
According to this weather station, just below the dam:
http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=MUP220&month=5&day=3&year=2008
It was 54F at 7pm on the 3rd. It fell to about 40F by daylight on the 4th, and by 10:30am still was below 50F.
Heat prostration?
So what’s the real problem? That six of these ba$tards that will never eat an endangered salmon again.
The only problem I saw was the 9th Circus stopping the shooting and relocating of the 85 a year. :(
Could the salmon eaters have been shot by PETA ?
They definitely weren’t shot but it wouldn’t surprise me if PETA or their cousins at HSUS triggered the trap to close them in, no evidence of that but I wouldn’t put it past them.
The feds need to capture them and feed them to the threatened polar bears. Two problems solved.
It’s too bad these moonbats praying for the sea lions aren’t as worried about our country as they are about those rats with fins that (by the way) are gorging themselves with endangered salmon at the fish ladders.
Maybe they died from starvation?
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