Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Killing Sea Lions Is Idiotic,|Humane Society Tells Feds

WASHINGTON (CN) - The Secretary of Commerce has irrationally and cruelly ordered that sea lions in the Columbia River must be killed immediately to protect salmon, though hydroelectric dams, fishermen and birds kill the vast majority of salmon there, and sea lions eat only 0.4 to 4.2 percent of the fish, the Humane Society claims in Federal Court.

The Humane Society says sea lions "eat between 0.4 and 4.2 percent of the 80,000 salmon and steelhead that spawn in the Columbia River. In comparison, fishermen are permitted to take approximately 9 to 12 percent, birds take 18 percent of juveniles, and hydroelectric dams take a whopping 59 percent of adults. ...

"Nevertheless, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Marine Fisheries Service has decided that sea lions in the Columbia River must be killed immediately to protect salmon, and has authorized state agents to shoot as many as 85 of the docile and federally protected marine mammals each year for 5 years - a total of 425 animals."

The Humane Society challenges the finding that the sea lions' "annual subsistence taking of 0.4 to 4.2 percent of the total salmon run is 'significant' under the MMPA (the Marine Mammal Protection Act)."

Categories / Uncategorized

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...