This article is the first I’ve seen that juxtaposes salmon consumption rates of recreational fishers with a non-human predator, in this case, the CA sea lions. It will be an interesting exercise to see what factors reduce the runs on the various rivers of the West Coast where SRKWs forage annually. At 100kg of salmon per day per orca, is it possible SRKWs as an endangered species should have a more prominent seat in the annual development of salmon fisheries management policy?
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No more free lunch on the Columbia
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Tuesday March 03, 2009, 3:25 PM |
| The leading argument against the killing of California sea lions that feast on endangered fish at Bonneville Dam is that the lions eat a “mere 4 percent” of the salmon and steelhead swimming upstream to spawn. |
| That figure is based on the share of all the salmon passing through Bonneville over an entire year. In fact, the sea lions are at Bonneville only a few months, and their impact is much greater on those stocks migrating in spring. NOAA Fisheries has estimated that removing 85 sea lions a year for two years could increase the returns of listed spring chinook and steelhead by up to 12.5 percent, a much higher return than the region would get from expensive improvements at dams. |
| Sport fishermen targeting hatchery fish, not endangered wild species, are allowed about 13 percent of the salmon run. Sport fishing, meanwhile, provides hundreds of millions of dollars in annual economic benefit |
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