Posted on 03/21/2004 5:32:02 PM PST by writer33
Say marine mammals depleting fish supply
PORTLAND -- Columbia River smelt, salmon and sturgeon are being gobbled up by hungry seals and sea lions at alarming rates, according to fishermen in Oregon and Washington.
When smelt were in the Cowlitz River recently, a pack of eight to 10 sea lions would swoop in and "blow the smelt right off the spawning beds," Bruce Crookshanks, a Cowlitz County commercial fisherman, said at a hearing this past week to set salmon-fishing seasons.
Seals and sea lions are protected species under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act.
"You've got a major predator problem," Crookshanks said at Thursday's hearing. "The states need to raise Cain with the feds. You've got these critters going hog-wild."
Jim Wells, president of Salmon For All, an Astoria-based commercial fishing group, said there is no sense even trying to net salmon downstream of the Astoria-Megler Bridge because of marine mammal predation.
Volunteer commercial fishermen test-net for spring chinook salmon with state observers aboard on Sundays and Wednesdays before the adoption of commercial fishing periods. The test fish are released.
In 12 to 16 test drifts, only one salmon and one steelhead were caught, Wells said.
"Sea lions were throwing three salmon around the boat last night," he said. "You can't fish around Astoria. You get eaten alive. The tribes, sports and commercial fishermen need to form a coalition."
With a huge run of spring chinook salmon just beginning to enter the Columbia, the effects of marine mammal predation this year are expected to be relatively minor. But fishermen said in a year when runs aren't as plentiful, marine mammals might be able to snatch up most of the run.
Marine mammals preying on salmon and steelhead is a long-standing issue, but the reports of their feeding on sturgeon are relatively new.
This is outrageous. Marine mammals eating fish. What are we to do? :) Sarcasm for your evening's enjoyment.
This reminds me of the otter story on Rush Limbaugh. About how nature takes care of itself. Funny.
I don't think you 'get' what this story is about. It's true that protecting the seals and protecting the fish operate at cross purposes.
And it's important to document this because the commercial and sport fishermen who have given up their livelihoods to permit 'moratoriums' are asked to sit by and watch the lunacy of seal-protection programs literally eating the fish-protecting programs -- meaning the humans are just sh*t-out-of-luck.
I saw the same thing in Eastern Canada and have written about it here on FR.
This is a serious issue and not one to make light! Sarcasm is just what the commercial fisherman and sport fishing guides do not need when their livlihood has been seriously threatened by seals and sea lions. Nature does take care of itself until manipulated by stupid and shallow government mandates and enforcement of these laws by the "regulators". These government employees live much better than most of the commercial fisherman in the Pacific Northwest.
In reality, managing the seal population had the benefit of helping the fish population.
Now that the fishing grounds were decimated by overfishing (often by foreign trawling, not by the locals), the fishing moratoriums were intended to let the groundfish recover. This worked, for example, with striped bass, but the striped bass fishery is further south (Chesepeake Bay) and not affected by seals.
Seals, left unchallenged, are extremely efficient predators. When I fished often in New England, the fall arrival of seals IMMEDIATELY corresponded with the disappearance of the fish -- the fish know when to 'get out of Dodge' when the seals arrive.
In Canada, I've seen mlti-year moratoriums have little effect on the revival of groundfish -- and one can only surmise that the seals are responsible.
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