Sea Lions Are Being Trapped And Killed With Your Taxpayer Dollars

Sea Lions Are Being Trapped And Killed With Your Taxpayer Dollars

Started
April 7, 2010
Petition to
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Jane Lubchenco and 2 others
Petition Closed
This petition had 288 supporters

Why this petition matters

Started by Caleb Laieski

Sea lions eat fish. This is not a crime, just an evolutionary fact. As the spring Chinook salmon run begins in the Columbia River, California sea lions, who live in this Pacific Northwest river and are routinely scapegoated and labeled a "problem" - again are in the government crosshairs. They are getting trapped and killed by the Oregon and Washington wildlife agencies for eating fish - a tiny fraction of the salmon returning to their birthplace to spawn. Since March 2009, when federal authorization was given to bypass the protections of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, 33 sea lions have been trapped, 24 are dead and the rest put into permanent captivity.

This misguided government plan is being challenged in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and IDA fights on in the Oregon Court of Appeals for one sea lion, Willy, removed without proper authority last year. Eight sea lions have been killed already this year, two in the last week of March. IDA's volunteer humane observers are on the ground at the dam, protesting and documenting the situation around the clock from the "Sea Wolf," an RV serving as a mobile monitoring station and painted with a beautiful wildlife mural depicting sea lions and salmon swimming.

Sea lions are being scapegoated for human problems. According to the government's own data, California sea lions only eat between 0.2% and 4% of the spring run below the Bonneville Dam, and killing them will never address the real human-created threats to salmon recovery - dams, habitat destruction, introduced non-native fish, and overfishing. Tragically, fishing quotas have increased every year since the sea lion killing program began, and this year fisherman will be allowed to take 16 percent of the same Chinook run, while the sea lions will likely take only one percent!

More than $800,000 tax dollars per year are pooled together from federal and state agencies complicit in this project, paid for by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers which operates the dam and is in charge of identifying sea lions for removal, and Washington and Oregon wildlife agencies which applied for the permit and carry out the killing. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) gives the killing authorization, and all three agencies listed below have the power to end the program. 

Petition Closed

This petition had 288 supporters

Share this petition

Share this petition in person or use the QR code for your own material.Download QR Code

Decision Makers

  • Jane LubchencoNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
  • Roy ElickerOregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW)
  • Phil AndersonWashington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW)