Target:National Marine Fisheries Service, Office of Protected Resources Sponsored by:Care2
The National Marine Fisheries Service recently authorized the killing of up to 85 federally protected sea lions this year at the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River in Oregon.
Federal and state officials claim they have to kill sea lions to protect endangered salmon. But sea lions are not the main threat to endangered salmon on the Columbia river - dams, habitat loss and humans are.
Consider the facts:
Sea lions kill between 0.4% and 4.2% of salmon and steelhead returning to the Columbia River each year;
Federal dams on the Snake River kill over 15% of returning steelhead and salmon adults each year;
Oregon and Washington states, which requested permission to kill sea lions, proposed increasing fishing quotas from 9% to 12% of the 2008 salmon run.
A federal judge is set to rule on this plan on May 8th, and until then no sea lions may be killed. Yet six federally protected sea lions were just found shot to death on the Columbia River at Bonneville Dam. Make sure no more sea lions die - tell NMFS to abandon its plan to allow killing of sea lions on the Columbia River!
9:45 am PDT, Apr 29,Angie Whiteman, United Kingdom
# 3,923:
5:47 pm PDT, Apr 27,Louis Reginato Jr, Virginia
# 3,922:
3:58 pm PDT, Apr 27,David Rossi, Texas
# 3,921:
9:05 pm PDT, Apr 26,Cindy Strousberg, Florida
Please stop the Killing Plan
# 3,920:
1:04 am PDT, Apr 26,Michel Michaeljohn, California
# 3,919:
10:25 am PDT, Apr 25,Whitewolf Maiden, New Mexico
# 3,918:
11:02 pm PDT, Apr 23,Shelly Browne, Colorado
# 3,917:
4:38 pm PDT, Apr 23,Barbara Schiano, New York
# 3,916:
5:57 pm PDT, Apr 22,Marvin Tisdale, South Carolina
# 3,915:
3:27 am PDT, Apr 21,Jennifer Hall, Tennessee
# 3,914:
9:23 pm PDT, Apr 20,Stacy Cox, Iowa
# 3,913:
8:15 am PDT, Apr 20,Catherine Dunham, Virginia
# 3,912:
9:07 pm PDT, Apr 18,Jenny Dooley, Australia
If sea lions are not the primary cause of salmon decline, there is no point in murdering them.
# 3,911:
11:06 am PDT, Apr 18,Timothy Stewart, Oregon
# 3,910:
7:02 am PDT, Apr 17,Claudine Goldstein, California
# 3,909:
5:23 pm PDT, Apr 16,Harry Mauney, North Carolina
# 3,908:
3:44 pm PDT, Apr 16,Nyack Clancy, New York
# 3,907:
1:24 pm PDT, Apr 16,Joana Carmo, Portugal
# 3,906:
1:16 pm PDT, Apr 16,Michelle Eickmeier, Germany
# 3,905:
7:57 am PDT, Apr 16,Kim Gelinas, Massachusetts
# 3,903:
3:56 am PDT, Apr 16,Claudia Hübler, Germany
# 3,904:
3:55 am PDT, Apr 16,Sabine Hübler, Germany
# 3,902:
3:54 am PDT, Apr 16,Günter Hübler, Germany
# 3,901:
10:48 pm PDT, Apr 15,Name not displayed, Oregon
To: NMFS
The sea lions are NOT the problem. We humans have taken more than our fair share and are now blaming it on others. The sea lions are only doing what comes natural to them. We have interfered with nature long enough. Remove the dams or do something else to protect the sturgeon and the salmon. Breed some of the sturgeon in captivity and then release them into the wild when things right themselves. I am a Pacific Northwest resident so I am not new to this problem.
