🚀 go-pugleaf

.....California Sea Lions that is.

California sea lions have eaten what appears to be a record number of
spring chinook salmon at Bonneville Dam, the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers reports.

Hazing efforts to keep the sea lions from the schooled-up salmon
searching for fish ladders to help them upriver to spawn have ended for
the season. Most of the sea lions also have left.

The efforts included explosions on and under the water, rubber buckshot
and beanbag rounds fired from shotguns.

Researchers observed 3,557 salmon taken below the dam. The previous
record in the six years observations have been made was 3,533 in 2004
– 1.9 percent of the run that year.

This year predation below the dam is expected to be 4.1 percent because
the run was smaller.

"We had a relatively low fish run" this year, said Robert Stansell, who
heads up the research effort for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which
operates the dam.

The male sea lions have appeared at the dam in growing numbers in recent
years, apparently because of an increase in the size of the spring
chinook run.

One sea lion with the brand C265 was trapped and weighed near the river
mouth in March at 559 pounds. He was found there again after spending
more than two months below the dam and weighed 1,043 pounds.

He has been seen at the dam annually since 2002.

Observers this year identified up to 51 California sea lions at the dam
on any one day.

"Evidence suggests that the increased harassment program this year did
not have an overall substantial impact on reducing predation in the
tailrace below Bonneville Dam nor the number of sea lions," the Corps of
Engineers concluded.
"Whether or not more salmon would have been taken without this effort is
unknown."

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