A prized population of Columbia River sturgeon is the latest victim in a familiar Pacific Northwest plot: Hungry sea lions exploit an artificial fish barrier, eat their fill of fish and defy wildlife officers to scare them away. The stage is the Columbia Gorge, downstream of Bonneville Dam, about 40 miles east of Portland, the first in a series of hydroelectric generators that bottle up endangered salmon and other species.
This time, Steller sea lions, the biggest members of the eared seal family and themselves threatened with extinction, dine on some of the largest and oldest freshwater fish in North America.
The prey are vulnerable matriarchs of a sturgeon population said to be among the world’s healthiest. Elsewhere, most sturgeon are extinct or nearly so. They have fallen victim to overfishing, poaching – think beluga caviar – and habitat destruction.
Yet white sturgeon below Bonneville persist – at least until now.
“Predation has suddenly put this in jeopardy,” said Brad James, a Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist. “If nothing’s done, the overall population will definitely suffer.”
In this case, the villains are perhaps 10 male Steller sea lions, protected by the federal Endangered Species Act and weighing up to 2,400 pounds.
This Sturgeon was caught on the Willamette River just below Oregon City two weeks ago. It weighed out at over 1,000 lbs and measured out at 11'1". It was 56" around the girth and took over 6 and a half hours, and 4 dozen beers, for the 4 guys taking turns at the reeling it in. Any Sturgeon OVER about five feet has to be released unharmed and cannot be removed from the water. They are brood / breeding stock and probably older than most of us.
Good start.
One wonder how many they kill per year ?
Normally the seals do not even eat all of the fish ?