Crafty Sea Lion Befuddles Fish Biologists

http://www.comcast.net/ ^ | 3 31 06 | JOSEPH B. FRAZIER

[fish hawk]

I've watched this at the mouth of the Klamath. Sea Lions come up from the bottom on to the salmon, that is their blind side, and grab the belly of the fish. They surface and shake off the rest of the salmon and eat only the belly parts they have in their mouth, then go look for another salmon. The Indians there have been trying, for years, to get the government to kill back the Sea Lions as they have been protected for so many years they are over population. The Enviros will have none of that.

[balrog666]

How do Sea Lion burgers taste?

[fish hawk]

That salmon that you are getting at the stores are not natural salmon. Sometime, get a real salmon and compare the two. You will be surprised and the quality between them. Even the red color in that fish if fake. As for sea lions, they are way over population, and need to be controlled. (just like fishing and the salmon are controlled) You might want to actually read up on a subject before making a statement about it.

[stboz]

Any fishermen/biologists correct if wrong...

I have read somewhere the ^%$#@! sea lions will take a bite or two out of the fish and then get another and another....

thus destroying without entirely consuming the fish.

True or urban legend?

[bigfootbob]

Not again. I witnessed this foolishness and was very embarrassed by my neighbors for being so Effin STUPID. They called the Seals "Hershel". The screwed around with these things for several years, I just wish they woulda rounded up the protesters and taken them with the damn seal.

[szweig]

The big problem here is that it is virtually impossible to get the 1972 law rescinded. Imagine the furor when Congress porposes legislation to allow killing the "cute, fuzzy little fellas". The animal rights morons would go crazy. Just another sign that the USA is a doomed, feminized society. Everyone emotes but no one thinks logically...SSZ

[Beagle8U]

"The Sea Lions that come into the mouth of the Eel River near Eureka will catch a Salmon and take a big bite then move on to the next victim letting the carcase float out to sea...
Something will eat the remaider, so nothing is lost."

I would shoot the stupid sea lions and let them "float out to sea"...Something will eat their "remainders", so nothing is lost.

Now people can eat those salmon, problem solved.

[looscnnn]

I watched Penn & Teller's Bullshi t last night about the Endangered Species Act. It was great. I think they should do one about the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

[hinckley buzzard]

PS. I haven't noticed a salmon shortage at the stores.

BumbleBee Wild Alaska pink salmon..14.75oz, 89c per can.(1g Omega-3 fatty acids per serving)

[RichInOC]

You see a Corps of Engineers fish-ladder. C404 sees his own personal hosted buffet.

Nature. It's a beautiful thing.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

"Salmon headed for the rivers are going to die. Natural food cycle has been around since... "

I agree; I want most of them to spawn first.

'Just because humans have taken a chunk out of the salmon population doesn't mean that the sealions or other sea life have to suffer for it."

As far as I'm concerned, salmon in the open ocean are fair game to sea lions. Salmon in a Corp of Engineers fish ladder are not. Its like using a snag hook in a barrel, or dynamite in a pond. Not sporting, ought to be prevented.

"PS. I haven't noticed a salmon shortage at the stores."

Here in Kansas I have to pay anywhere from $8 to $12 a pound for fresh salmon. Too high, no buy, lots of salmon, no shortage. Instead, people here can buy sirloin strip for $3.50 to $6 per pound. The flint hills in Kansas are lousy with cattle, beef is cheap. The wolves and bears were all hunted to extinction a long time ago so the cattle don't have a lot to worry about. (Lighting, maybe.)

I like salmon, and would fish for it myself, but the salmon run doesn't make it this far up the Kaw river. The run could come down the Kaw as well, I guess, if the salmon could only be trained to cross open ground in the rockies and come from the direction of the continental divide, and provided the Kaw had not dried up, as it intermittently does. Until that happens I have to hope that someone resolves the sea lion issue and the the Salmon continue past the dam, and find their joy in some quiet shaded stone filled pool.

[LibertarianInExile]

"can't kill C404 because sea lions are protected under the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act."

So don't kill him. Move him somewhere he can't be a bother. Like Wyoming.

I always wondered WTF they were thinking in San Fran with the marina taken over by seals there. Were I a boat owner there, I'd have hired a lesser diplomat from the UN to take a free trip to San Fran, bringing a good-sized gun to the docks to dispatch every damn one of the flippered nuisances.

[Moonman62]

The Indians there have been trying, for years, to get the government to kill back the Sea Lions as they have been protected for so many years they are over population. The Enviros will have none of that.

Just like alligators. They are no longer threatened, but they are still protected.