Tag Archives: salmon populations
Sea lions, seals might be hampering WA salmon recovery. What can be done?
State officials are now exploring whether to kill sea lions and seals in the Salish Sea and outer coast in a desperate effort to save salmon species from extinction. A new report commissioned by the state Legislature and completed by the Washington Academy of the Sciences says seals and sea lions are likely impeding salmon recovery, and the full impacts of predation on salmon may not be fully understood without lethal intervention. Three mammals specifically have skyrocketed. From 1975 to 2015, the harbor seal population in the Salish Sea exploded from about 6,000 to around 50,000. And California sea lions rose from 50,000 to somewhere around 300,000 on the West Coast of the U.S., according to the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. Populations of Steller’s sea lions living around Washington, Oregon and California steadily rose from an estimated 15,000 in 1982 to more than 43,000 in 2019. >click to read< 09:14
Pinnipeds, not commercial fishing, depriving Orca of salmon
The plight of the orcas has caught the attention of government leaders after a mother orca was spotted carrying her dead baby for nine days in a row; Tom Nelson of 710 ESPN’s “Outdoor Line” podcast has a few ideas for how the state can help save them. Nelson explains that, unlike other types of orca that feast on pinnipeds such as seals and sea lions, the Southern Resident Killer Whales rely on eating salmon to survive. The grieving mother belongs to the Southern Resident pod. There are not enough salmon being produced at hatcheries to feed the Orca in the Puget Sound, Nelson explained, and increasing development has destroyed the salmons’ homes. “That has put a pinch on the diet of these Southern Resident Killer Whale Orcas, >click to read<16:44
