Out and About: Sea Lion bill passes U.S. Senate, House

Legislation to protect salmon and steelhead runs from sea lion predation took a big step forward on Tuesday when the U.S. House of Representatives approved a reconciled version of SB 3119, the Endangered Salmon Predation Prevention Act, which will amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The bill was passed by the U.S. Senate last week.

President Donald Trump is expected to sign the bill into law.

The changes have been sought for years, and time was running out for the passage of the bill before Congress adjourns for the year.

The bill will make it substantially easier for state fisheries managers and tribal entities to remove, by lethal force if necessary, sea lions that are preying on endangered salmon and steelhead within the Columbia River basin.

The action was deemed necessary to prevent the extinction of salmon runs. Sea lions have been posting up at pinch points such as fish ladders and waterfalls, where the salmon are concentrated, and threatening the runs by eating huge numbers of fish.

Attention has been recently drawn to salmon and steelhead runs in Oregon’s Willamette River. The winter wild steelhead run was reportedly facing an 89 percent chance of extinction because sea lions have been congregating below the Willamette River Falls in Oregon City and decimating the return.

The states of Oregon, Washington, local tribes, fishing interests, conservationists, and a bipartisan coalition of politicians from Oregon and Washington worked together to push the legislation through.

Commission to hear input on salmon/sturgeon

The public will have an opportunity to provide comment on a recent review of a policy that guides management of Columbia River salmon at an upcoming Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting in Olympia.

In addition, the commission will take public comment on a management policy for sturgeon in the lower Columbia River.

The commission, a citizen panel appointed by the governor to set policy for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), will meet Friday and Saturday in Room 172 of the Natural Resources Building, 1111 Washington St. SE, Olympia. The meeting will begin at 8:30 a.m. Friday and at 8 a.m. Saturday.

A full agenda is available online at https://wdfw.wa.gov/commission/meetings.html.

On Saturday, the commission will discuss a recently completed review of the Columbia River Basin Salmon Management Policy, next steps in the process – including achieving concurrency with Oregon for 2019 – and take comments from the public. The 5-year-old policy was designed to promote orderly fisheries, wild salmon and steelhead conservation, and economic stability in fisheries.

Strategies for achieving those goals included allocating more salmon to sport fisheries, promoting the use of alternative fishing gear in commercial fisheries and increasing the production/releases of salmon in the off-channel areas. The recent review, available online at https://wdfw.wa.gov/commission/, assessed the results of these and other provisions of that policy.

Also on Saturday, the commission will receive a briefing and take public comments on the Lower Columbia River Sturgeon Policy, including potential updates. The policy provides guidelines to promote a healthy white sturgeon population and sustainable fisheries in the lower Columbia River.

In other action, the commission will consider two land transactions, one of which would add 140 acres near Merrill Lake in Cowlitz County to the Mount St. Helens Wildlife Area.