Sea Lion Terrorism

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has been battling with intelligent sea lions who figured out that dams constrict not only the flow of water but also the flow of salmon. Being wild animals, they adapt and find the easiest place to catch salmon which, thanks to the dam, is the fish ladder. Unfortunately, they are being labeled as pests and "trouble makers" for naturally pursuing their prey and the ODFW is now trying to get permission to kill sea lions for eating salmon.

Does this make any sense? We are blaming low runs of salmon on sea lions? Let's see which came first? Humans or sea lions? Hmmmmm. If I remember correctly from biology class at WRA I learned that predator and prey relationships balance each other out. Meaning if there were a lot of sea lions eating salmon, then there would be less salmon, some sea lions would starve and die, thus lowering the amount of predators. Salmon populations would then increase, followed by the sea lion populations. This would fluctuate back and forth until a balance was reached.

What messes it all up is when you have a exploding human population, essentially a super predator. Unfortunately there exists no predator to prey on humans, no population control besides the obvious (disease, natural disasters, human inflicted pop. control like war/genocide). So we enjoy a exploding population with no control. We also jump in our boats and go fishing for salmon. Some of us do it for sport, some of us do it to eat, and some (who fish 10 ft. off the Sandy river spawning grounds) do it because we are idiots. Who wants to eat a dying salmon?

Alas, I digress. Why are we going after the natural predator of the salmon who are just trying to get a bite to eat instead of looking at the real cause of the decline in the salmon population? Before the The Dalles Dam, there was Cielo Falls which naturally constricted the flow of water and salmon. Are we to believe that the sea lions didn't exploit this constricted area for the benefit of their bellies? The only reason they wouldn't have is because there were plenty of salmon to be caught at the mouth of the Columbia. Too bad those runs are all gone.