Articles

The House yesterday approved bipartisan legislation to protect Northwest residents’ $1 billion annual investment in endangered Columbia River salmon by voting to allow states and tribes to lethally remove predatory sea lions that consume thousands of endangered salmon at the base of Bonneville Dam.

“Northwest citizens spend nearly $1 billion each year to protect endangered salmon and improve their habitat. It doesn’t make any sense to sit back and watch predatory sea lions feast on a salmon buffet at the base of the dam year after year. Federal agencies and tribes have tried every deterrent short of lethal removal and none have proved to be sufficient. Yesterday the House passed a bipartisan plan to protect the major investment by Oregonians to protect salmon,” said Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.).

Rep. Walden is a cosponsor of H.R. 3069, the Endangered Salmon and Fisheries Predation Prevention Act, a bipartisan bill sponsored by six House members from the Pacific Northwest. If passed by the Senate and signed into law, the legislation would allow the issuance of state and tribal permits to lethally remove predatory sea lions.

In April 2012, after determining that non-lethal means of deterrence had failed, the Obama Administration authorized Oregon, Washington, and Idaho to lethally remove California sea lions in those states between the months of March and May.

In 2005 and 2006, Rep. Walden joined then-Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) and Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA) in holding bipartisan regional forums, including one in Pendleton, Ore., to explore ways to improve the survival of adult salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River system.

At the Pendleton forum, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers testified that the consumption of fish by sea lions in the vicinity of Bonneville Dam had been on a steady increase and that the sea lions had even figured out how to enter the fish ladders at Bonneville Dam to gorge themselves on endangered salmon.

The salmon protection bill was included as part of the Conservation and Economic Growth Act, a package of 14 bills to remove federal burdens to economic development and job growth in rural America. The bill passed the House on June 19 by a vote of 232-188 and now heads to the Senate for consideration.