Sea Lions Who Eat Spawning Trout May Par for Meal With Their Lives : Ecology: Firecrackers and rubber-tipped arrows have failed to protect the fish. Now officials are looking as ‘lethal removal’ of nuisance animals.
For years, state and federal fisheries officials have tried everything from firecrackers to rubber-tipped arrows to stop hungry sea lions from feasting on trout swimming through a fish ladder. Now, they have another option: execution.
After months of contentious debate, the National Marine Fisheries Service recently approved the state’s request for permission to kill sea lions as a last resort to protect Lake Washington steelhead trout.
“We’ve certainly tried everything we can think of,” said Brian Gorman, a spokesman for the Commerce Department, which oversees the fisheries service. “This is clearly a last-resort attempt to solve a very serious problem with the steelhead run.”
But, because of several strict conditions imposed by the fisheries service, it’s unlikely any sea lions will be killed any time soon.
Before “lethal removal” can take place, the state must ensure that all feasible and practical non-lethal removal methods have been exhausted, fisheries service administrator Rolland Schmitten said.
For example, the state must try to prevent the sea lions from approaching the locks by using special noise-making devices to scare them away. It must also try to capture and find temporary holding facilities for sea lions identified as munching on steelhead. And the animals would have to be eating more than 10% of the steelhead run during a seven-day period before lethal removal could be considered.
Those were among the conditions recommended last November by a federally convened task force of scientists, environmentalists, fish organizations and others.
Dr. John Grandy, vice president of wildlife and habitat protection for the Humane Society of the United States, said he is pleased the fisheries service is emphasizing non-lethal solutions. He warned, though, that his group will go to court if state or federal officials move to kill any sea lions.
Environmentalists contend that any sea lions killed would only be replaced by others. They advocate more humane restraint, such as holding troublesome sea lions until the fish run is over.
The California sea lions congregate each year outside the Ballard Locks, which connect Puget Sound with Lake Union and Lake Washington. From January through March, steelhead bound for spawning grounds in Lake Washington are funneled through a fish ladder at the locks, which makes them easy pickings.
When sea lions first started showing up in the 1986-87 season, 1,172 steelhead passed through the locks, Gorman said. Last season, that figure dropped to 70. Meanwhile, Washington’s population of California sea lions has grown from occasional sightings in the 1970s to 400 or 500 today, the fisheries service said.
“Nobody knows what percentage of those fish are being eaten by sea lions, but suffice it to say it is a substantial amount,” Gorman said.
In past years, the fisheries service and the state have tried a variety of means to control sea lion predation: capturing and trucking them back to California, installing barriers and changing water flows at the locks, shooting the animals with rubber-tipped arrows and setting off firecrackers. But each year the pesky mammals returned.
Under an amendment last year to the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the state in July petitioned the federal government for permission to kill the animals. Such killings would be done “humanely”--such as by lethal injection--under the supervision of a veterinarian.
Fred Felleman of the Washington Environmental Council said fisheries officials have underestimated the number of Lake Washington steelhead, which are under consideration for protection under the Endangered Species Act. He said officials should work harder on finding ways to get fish past the locks faster. At the moment, he said, the fish are sitting ducks.
