Posted on 03/18/2008 10:57:07 AM PDT by jazusamo
Yeah. All based on the poor numbers returning to the Sacramento river.
I've lived on the coast forever and seeing dead sea lions with evidence of lead poisoning has been a common sight for a long time. The boys at the dams may get caught if they shoot one, but on the high sea it's a different story.
You summed it up well, gundog. There have been several over the last few years that have killed them on the river and they’ve been caught, and the Columbia is a wide river. Anyone trying to kill them at Bonneville Dam thinking they’d get away with it would have to be brain dead. The open ocean is a whole other story.
It’s about time! Those critters have killed fisheries at the coast for decades!
Hiya Doll! You’re correct and it’s good to see ya. :-)
Hi jaz - Thanks. It’s good to see you, too! :)
Kind of a tough arguement to make.I've seen newspapers from the 1870's where people bitched about sea lions eating all the salmon. That was before damming and rampant clear cutting degraded the environment required by spawning fish. If you've never seen cormorants lining up and herding schools of salmon smolt into the shallows, or watched striped bass...an introduced species on the West Coast...slash through a school of smolt, it's easy to just hang it on the sea lions. That said, the ones that migrate to Oregon are generally surplus males, and thinning them out with a 30-06 wouldn't be a bad thing.
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