Congress Wants To Kill Protected Sea Lions For Eating Endangered Fish

[Swordsmyth]

Legislation that would make killing sea lions in the Pacific Northwest easier passed Congress Tuesday and is waiting for President Donald Trump’s approval, Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) reports.
Sea lions in Washington and Oregon are feeding on endangered salmon and steelhead trout and risk wiping them out of the area completely. Wildlife officials in the state are pushing to relax federal protections on sea lions to allow some hunting and manage the predators’ population.
The bill loosens restrictions on killing sea lions under the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act. It allows wildlife officials to approve the hunting of up to 100 sea lions annually.


“I suspect many would wish the times were different and this legislation wasn’t necessary,” Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission executive director Jaime Pinkham told OPB. “But the reality is that this legislation has become necessary.”
Critics of the bill say the sea lion population is being unjustly blamed for the failure of wildlife officials to properly manage and protect the endangered fish, OPB reports.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife requested Congress let it kill or remove up to 92 sea lions annually in June. Wildlife officials have known about the problem for roughly a decade and believe that the steelhead has a 90 percent chance of extinction if nothing is done.
The sea lion population has recovered from a low of about 10,000 in the 1950s to roughly 300,000 now. The species is at its “carrying capacity,” or nearing the upper limit of what its habitat can sustainably support, according to Washington wildlife officials.

https://www.infowars.com/congress-wa...d-fish-report/

[Origanalist]

I'm assuming the salmon tastes better than the sea lions do, plus they won't steal your catch. I'm not for wiping out anything but I think sea lions are pretty self sustaining at this point.

[Anti Globalist]

Well congress is filled with a bunch of heartless aholes. I could never bring myself to kill an animal. Unless an animal was trying to kill me of course.

[oyarde]

We can make lamp oil from the sea lions and sell it to the leftists as green .

[specsaregood]

We can make lamp oil from the sea lions and sell it to the leftists as green .

How do they taste, though. Personally, I'm waiting till we have this problem with manatees, they look like good eating.

[Anti Federalist]

On the east coast:

Startline 1970.

Foreign trawlers fishing off the coast of the US/Canada threaten to wipe out groundfish stocks.

Congress passes 200 mile limit and kicks them all out in 1976.

Right around the same time, Congress passes laws prohibiting seal bounties and hunting.

Lack of cheap fish in great volume from the foreign flag vessels results in shortages and higher prices: fish brokers and restaurants cry foul.

Congress passes low interest loan guarantees under the Jones Act, basically passing out free money to anybody who wants to buy or build a fishing boat, in order to get seafood back on the market.

Hundreds, thousands of new hulls are built.

On the east coast, the new vessels, almost all run by corporate fleets and not owner-operators, push for the bottom line and fast buck.

On the gulf coast, newly arrived Vietnamese migrants use refugee status to put themselves and their kin at the front of the line to receive taxpayer funded vessel loans, displacing thousands of native US fishermen, leading to incidents of actual armed combat around the Gulf of Mexico.

In both areas fish stocks are hammered even harder by the new massive fleet, funded by tax dollars.

Ten years later, Uncle Sucker decides all these boats have to go, and starts a process of deliberately imposing onerous and burdensome regulations designed to put fishermen out of work. This ultimately affects the small owner-operator, the very best steward of marines resources, and leaves many of the corporate "fleet" vessels unscathed.

But it appears to be too little too late, groundfish (cod, haddock, hake, whiting, fluke, flounder, halibut) stocks continue to decline.

More burdensome regulations, bans, "buybacks" and the collapse of 300 year old fishing communities ensues.

Fast forward twenty years.

Just as the groundfish stocks start to look like they might recover, out of the blue comes an explosion in the seal population (the same ones that Uncle Sucker protected 40 years before, remember?) that begin to decimate the young and just barely recovering groundfish stocks. (Seals are notoriously wasteful, they will routinely kill a codfish to eat the belly flaps and discard the rest of the fish. They were hunted for a reason.)

And so many coastal communities, that readily and happily discarded dirty, stinking and filthy fish docks, for bright tourist based economies and yacht clubs and beaches, find themselves in a panic because with the seals, have come a huge increase in sharks and in shark attacks, casting a giant black cloud over "Shark Central" tourism.

Sharks having found protected status as well.

And somewhere, out by Davy Jones, Quint is laughing his ass off.

[Brian4Liberty]

“You eat fish? Like outta the water? Haha.”

[Anti Federalist]

Personally, I'm waiting till we have this problem with manatees, they look like good eating.

Seals taste like $#@!.

Manatees?

Not bad, so I've read.

https://ambergriscaye.com/25years/hu...rmanatees.html

[oyarde]

How do they taste, though. Personally, I'm waiting till we have this problem with manatees, they look like good eating.

Not really that good , but the skins are useful .

[Occam's Banana]

Central planners are just as good at managing ecologies as they are at managing economies ...

On the east coast:

Startline 1970.

Foreign trawlers fishing off the coast of the US/Canada threaten to wipe out groundfish stocks.

Congress passes 200 mile limit and kicks them all out in 1976.

Right around the same time, Congress passes laws prohibiting seal bounties and hunting.

Lack of cheap fish in great volume from the foreign flag vessels results in shortages and higher prices: fish brokers and restaurants cry foul.

Congress passes low interest loan guarantees under the Jones Act, basically passing out free money to anybody who wants to buy or build a fishing boat, in order to get seafood back on the market.

Hundreds, thousands of new hulls are built.

On the east coast, the new vessels, almost all run by corporate fleets and not owner-operators, push for the bottom line and fast buck.

On the gulf coast, newly arrived Vietnamese migrants use refugee status to put themselves and their kin at the front of the line to receive taxpayer funded vessel loans, displacing thousands of native US fishermen, leading to incidents of actual armed combat around the Gulf of Mexico.

In both areas fish stocks are hammered even harder by the new massive fleet, funded by tax dollars.

Ten years later, Uncle Sucker decides all these boats have to go, and starts a process of deliberately imposing onerous and burdensome regulations designed to put fishermen out of work. This ultimately affects the small owner-operator, the very best steward of marines resources, and leaves many of the corporate "fleet" vessels unscathed.

But it appears to be too little too late, groundfish (cod, haddock, hake, whiting, fluke, flounder, halibut) stocks continue to decline.

More burdensome regulations, bans, "buybacks" and the collapse of 300 year old fishing communities ensues.

Fast forward twenty years.

Just as the groundfish stocks start to look like they might recover, out of the blue comes an explosion in the seal population (the same ones that Uncle Sucker protected 40 years before, remember?) that begin to decimate the young and just barely recovering groundfish stocks. (Seals are notoriously wasteful, they will routinely kill a codfish to eat the belly flaps and discard the rest of the fish. They were hunted for a reason.)

And so many coastal communities, that readily and happily discarded dirty, stinking and filthy fish docks, for bright tourist based economies and yacht clubs and beaches, find themselves in a panic because with the seals, have come a huge increase in sharks and in shark attacks, casting a giant black cloud over "Shark Central" tourism.

Sharks having found protected status as well.

And somewhere, out by Davy Jones, Quint is laughing his ass off.

[Swordsmyth]

Wildlife officials in Oregon have begun killing California sea lions that are eating too many of a type of vulnerable fish.
Three sea lions were killed last week as part of a conservation effort to protect winter steelheads in the Willamette River, The Associated Press reported Thursday.
A federal permit from the National Marine Fisheries Service allows officials to kill up to 93 California sea lions annually after attempts to trap and relocate the 1,000-pound animals failed.


The sea lions are eating so many of the fish in the river near Portland, Ore., that the trout are at risk of extinction.
A record-low of 512 wild winter steelhead survived the trek past the Willamette Falls, a grim comparison to the more than 15,000 fish recorded by the state less than 30 years ago.
The trout travel from inland rivers to grow into adult steelheads in the Pacific Ocean before returning to the rivers to spawn, AP noted.
Sea lions breed in Southern California and northern Mexico during the summer before the males head north to the Pacific Coast to forage.
Wildlife officials tried to relocate about a dozen of the dog-faced sea lions last year but the animals just swam back to the falls to catch more steelheads.
Sea lions can be killed if they are observed eating at least one steelhead near Willamette Falls between Nov. 1 and Aug. 15 or been spotted along the same stretch of river for two consecutive days, AP reported.

More at: https://thehill.com/policy/energy-en...-of-endangered

[dannno]

Sea lions and seals are over populated..

That means there is too much shark food out there..

This is long overdue..

‘It had one of my legs in its mouth’: How surfer escaped shark attack at Montaña de Oro


By Nick Wilson


January 09, 2019

Read more here: https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/l...#storylink=cpy

[AuH20]

Keep overfishing the seas (ASIANS) The seals aint dumb and will alter their diet to survive.

[AuH20]

Take away the seals normal prey items and thats why they are going to extraordinary lengths to eat. Some of their behavior around fisherman is abnormal.