NOAA recommends killing sea lions at Bonneville Dam

Posted by The Oregonian January 17, 2008 10:58AM

Categories: Green headlines

A federal agency is recommending the killing of as many as 30 sea lions a year at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, where they gather each year to eat migrating spring chinook salmon.

The recommendation from NOAA Marine Fisheries was one of four options, ranging from no action at all to killing many more of the sea lions that prey on salmon. Sea lions and many Columbia River spring salmon runs are protected by federal laws.

The agency will take public comment through Feb. 19.

The alternatives are in a draft environmental assessment issued in response to requests from Oregon, Washington and Idaho to kill predatory sea lions as a means of preserving dwindling salmon runs.

MORE:

Go to the NOAA site to read more about the recommendations

AP

I have a lot of mixed emotions about this. I have Indian friends here who make a living fishing the salmon. They should have first rights, in my opinion to the fish.

I have friends who just love to fish the salmon for sport. That, I have some trouble with... we catch and release but most of my friends do not. They often give me fish because I live off of fish except for the occasional boneless, skinless, flavor-lacking, dry to the point of choking chicken breast. It is generous and thoughtful and appreciated. But am I contributing to the problem?

The sea lions are here because we...with the help of the rest of the world... heavy blame delegated to Japan above others... have fished the hell out of our poor salmon in the ocean. Now the sea lions are here to feed. They are intelligent enough to understand the the fish ladders make salmon traffic heavy in a narrow alley where they can be easily collected.

I do not feel right about shooting them just because they found a good place to eat. I'd much rather that they said... sea lions may feed and the Indians may fish, who have fishing rights here.
But sport fishing needs to stop until the salmon have grown in numbers again to the point where they are safe enough to fish. And if that never happens, too bad fishermen.

I love salmon to eat, but we have hatchery fish that can be increased to help replenish the natural stock and farm fish that can be eaten. I'll miss the free fish, but I'm willing.

I really don't want them to kill the sea lions. Maybe its because I'm a California raised brat and used to the darlings barking at me and even chasing me on occasion. I'm awfully fond of them.

What do you think is the right thing to do?

PHOTO TRAILS

I photographed these outside my library's back door in the science folk's domain. They are the first spring flowers that showed up in this nice protected corner. They were supposed to be for citizen when she was so low... flowers to cheer her up, but it took me too long to get it together. Oops.







This is my river... chock full of salmon, sturgeon, sculpin, which are a nasty little catfish wannabe thing with spikes that cut you and make a strangling quacking sound when you pull them out of the water... eeeech. Steelhead, trout, wide mouth bass, regular bass, squaw fish... that squawk when you catch them. I truly prefer my fish to remain mute as they suffocate! Actually, we catch and release, but several friends gift us with things they don't release. The only fish we don't release are the squaw fish because they are killing all the baby salmon and have a bounty on their slimy heads.


When you are not facing north at the river and Washington state beyond the other side of the river, and you turn around to face south... this is what you see. These are my gorge cliffs. Hard to tell with the clouds hanging there, but they are very steep. Click on it and it gets bigger. My town is no more than four blocks wide north to south and has only one main street. We are three and a half miles long.






Now this next one is for Citizen in particular and the rest of you too.
It reminds me of her aliens, though I am sure this was perpetrated by the science folk.
They are everywhere.

I've no clue what the experiment is, but there
is one for sure. What do you think they're doing?

I'll ask some questions and see what I can find out.



Favorite quotes overheard today...

"I'll tell..." #1

"Who you gonna tell?" #2

"God." #1

"Yeah... and he'll get all smitey and shit!" #3

STUFFS

Spring Break is coming up for me. One of the advantages of working in a school is that I get spring break, winter break, many holidays and the entire summer off. I get 12 checks a year, so it isn't feast or famine. I am trying to figure out what to do for that week and the weekends on each end of it.

What would you do if you could go on vacation this time of year? Any suggestions?

Here are a few Irish factoids... Oh suffer through them! Humor me. There are only 4.

Did you know that St. Patrick was the second Bishop of Ireland, not the first?

He had dreams and heard voices like Joan of Arc... good thing he wasn't in France.

There were Irish immigrants in Colonial times too, though they were not poor and many were rich... one, Charles Carroll, who was the wealthiest man in the 13 colonies, lived to be 94 and was the only signer to see a railroad train. (My own Great-grandma, "Ma Boo" danced a jig for me when she was 96 years old! Go old Irish folk!)

Between 1830 and 1920 4.5 million Irish immigrants came to the USA and now 36,495,800 people claim Irish heritage (2006 census), second only to those of German heritage. Mexican Americans are at 28 million and something in the same census. (The Irish number doesn't include the Scottish-Irish who are counted separately and number around 5 million more.) Facts came from
http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/immig/irish2.html.

That's all the Irish for the day.

My favorite quote heard today:
“You should take this one because I have a fat head.” --one
kindergartner handing a piece of paper to another one. No, I don't get it either.

I found this and thought it was interesting enough to do:
Earth Hour: March 28,2009 8:30-9:30 p.m. turn off your lights.
http://www.earthhourus.org/main.php

Now I am going to go and figure out how to get photos from my camera into my computer and from the computer into my blog. Wish me luck.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope your blessings outnumbered the things that ticked you off today!

HAL 9000 LIVES!

Yeah! The bugs are finally worked out. I am so excited. Now I will have the time on computer to do my blog justice and not have to fight boys.

Just got back from the next town to the left... had a wonderful diner with the boy's dad... at a great Mexican food place. Yum. I had to drive Swell up there to stay with friends... and I don't go in the clown car anywhere by myself, in case it dies. Boy's dad is good about that. He is a gentleman. I will give him that. We actually got along well for a change. He even drove so that I could have a margarita. Okay, two. He had chicken enchilada suiza and I had the grilled chili lime chicken with a fresh salsa made of cabbage, onions cilantro and tomatoes. Awesome! Now I have food for lunch tomorrow too.

Even the drive home was great. I mean it was dark, but the entire distance is next to the river. Our river is up to a mile wide. It curvs and varies.I could see all the lights across the way and their reflections shimmered on the dark water. There was enough light to silhouette the clouds here and there.
Very pretty. No rain either. That was a nice break.
On the way up Swell (Max) and I cemented our plans for St. Patrick's Day. A trip to the big city to one of the Gaelic clubs called Kells. We are going to take the Viking (He looks like Thor... swear to goodness!), Nature Boy (So called because he loves to wear his kilt without a shirt.) Nature Boy and the Viking are brothers. Very handsome fellows. Sigh. (But like sons.) And B-wreck of course. Those four are a quite a team. B-wreck will be the designated driver. Anyway, four handsome guys, the best music in the world and enough to drink to make us silly. Ought to be a good time. I won't lack for dance partners that's for sure.

But coming home and finding that Hal 9000 was finally well... that was the icing on the cake. Have a wonderful night. I am going to sleep like a rock. Oh, guess my giving up drinking didn't last too long did it. Good t hing it wasn't for Lent.

Erin Go Bragh!

It’s March and the typical spring madness is upon me. Sick to death
of rain, though it’s what makes my home so green and lovely, sicker
still of snow. We had sunshine this morning and now the blue has turned
to grey rain. Perhaps I will cheer myself by splashing in the puddles.

March is also time for feelings of Erin Go Bragh!

I offer you these quotes by Irish authors:

“He was a bold man who first eat an oyster.”—Jonathan Swift

“Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him
through temporary periods of joy.” –William Butler Yeats

“I have believed the best of every man. And find that to believe is
enough to make a bad man show him at his best, or even a good man swings
his lantern higher.” –William Butler Yeats

(All personal favorites of mine. I’m still having trouble eating
oysters on the half shell… bold man indeed! )

Where I work, it’s all green, white and gold for St. Patrick’s
Day’s coming. I’ve gathered my best stories about Fionn mac
Cumhail (a.k.a. Finn mac Cool)… the greatest of all Irish heros… in my
personal opinion of course. Ireland gave birth to many. Today I read
the first story and got a real kick out of the looks on the faces of the
children when I told them how Finn Mac Cool bit off the magic little
finger of the great giant Cuhullin! There were cries of
“EEEEEEWWW!” but also big giggles.

“This mighty soldier on the eve of the war he waged told his troops
of lessons learned from battles fought: ‘May your heart grow bolder
like an iron-clad brigade’ said this leader to his outnumbered lot.
Known as a hero to all that he knew, long live the legend of Finn Mac
Cool! The brave Celtic leader of the chosen few… long live the legend of
Finn Mac Cool!” (as the Dropkick Murphy’s song goes.)

There’s a story of giant potato, one about Finn’s fine wife, Oona
who is as clever as brave, the hero giant Cuhullin or sometimes spelled
Cuchulainn (Koo-hoo-lin) who’s skin would turn around in battle so
that his heels and calves faced forward… one eye shrunk up tiny in his
head and the other grew huge and red… His hair would drip blood or light
and he entered a battle trance where he would not even know friend from
foe… so fierce was he! At the end of his life, he battled so hard that
he had to strap himself to a rock to keep from falling down as he raged.
Wahoo… fun stuffs!

We have fairies, sprites, will ’o the wisps and leprchans too for the
softer of heart. Some of my listeners are pretty little yet. But for
me, there is nothing like a good battle story with a hero at it’s
heart, bigger than life. I love the heck out of this stuff… no one
embroiders the truth better.

“Out of Ireland have we come, great hatred, little room, maimed us at
the start. I carry from my mother’s womb a fanatic heart.”
–William Butler Yeats. (Ditto me.)

I hope to finish Hal 9000 today. I had a hardware problem last night
that Squeaky has to help me resolve… but then I will know how to resolve
it myself. I hope everyone has enjoyed their day to the fullest
possible…

O terque quaterque beatum !
(We are three or four times blessed!) Believe it.

Weirdness

I am not even sure if this is going to work or not. My blog seems to be ill. It keeps telling me to try later, unable to load my blog now. So why do I think this post might make it? I don't. I'm just giving it a shot.

The Hal 9000 is loading it's programs now. I'm on the family Dell. Squeaky made me load my stuff myself. Said I need to learn how to build computers. Nice he has faith that I can, but geeze... we shall see how this works out. He even made me install a CD drive. A cruel master, this boy. I am by nature technically terminal. I can kill a sewing machine by walking past it... and yes, I duct tape, not sew.

So wish me luck. Hopefully I will be back tomorrow and beginning to do better things.

Questions

Okay, the Hal 9000 is still on hold, though Squeaky is on his feet again and back to making sounds. I overheard him telling his friend online "Well, think how much you hate your mom and multiply that by ten... that's how I feel about my dad and my mom... let's say I'm two hugs away from going postal!"
So the new Hal line should be launched soon. He made some other computers for his older brothers and called that line the Bates 5000... for those of you who follow The Onion News or who have seen The Onion Movie, that's the computer that was out of date before the guy who ordered it could get it out of the box... the Bates 2000, 2001. etc. This led me to check out The Onion this morning again. Still funny stuff. If you haven't been there, give it a shot.

Here are my questions:

1. How do you find stuff for your blogs?
2. How do you know what is okay to borrow for your blog and what isn't? Are there rules?
3. Is there some in-service or class out there somewhere? And please don't let it be a community ed thing! (We in education take education way too seriously!)