Battle With Sea Lions Turns Deadly

The commercial salmon season has opened off California’s northern coast, and two old foes--fishermen and sea lions--are squaring off in a sometimes deadly battle for the pricey fish.

Last month, the carcasses of four sea lions washed ashore down the coast from here, just south of Half Moon Bay. Each had been shot.

No one has been arrested, but fishing advocates and sea lion protectors alike say they believe fishermen have the strongest motive to go after the animals.

Sea lions “steal a lot of fish from fishermen,” said Jim Lecky, chief of the protected species division of the National Marine Fisheries Service’s southwest division.

An exasperated Zeke Grader, head of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Assns., describes the sea lions as “a little bit like Flipper.”

“They are extremely bright and lovable, and we’re certainly not going to propose killing them,” he said. “But they are posing a problem, and it has gotten worse each year over the past decade.”

Grader said he condemns shooting the animals--a crime under federal law--but understands the frustration fishermen feel. His organization, which represents 3,000 small commercial fishermen, has tried for years to push the federal government into acting on complaints about the sea lions.

“The government agencies would like to think, if they ignore the problem, it will go away,” Grader said.

The clashes have not only been with fishermen. As the number of sea lions have multiplied in recent years, so have their contacts with humans.

This spring, the harbor at Monterey Bay has been swamped with more than 400 young male sea lions that have thrown themselves onto piers and into boats, where they lounge.

The congregating sea mammals have delighted tourists but are making life miserable for boaters. Even the Coast Guard was having trouble getting its boats out of the harbor until it hired people to stand guard and chase the animals away.

Experts believe the Monterey sea lions may have been drawn by boaters or tourists throwing them scraps of fish.

On at least two isolated north coast beaches, there have been reports of the much larger elephant seals biting people. Lecky said that after the seals were forced from crowded offshore island rookeries, they relocated to the mainland to give birth. When tourists intruded, he said, the seals reacted by biting.

The National Marine Fisheries, which is responsible for protecting the animals, is aware of the problems posed by both sea lions and seals continuing to thrive off the coast, Lecky said. But the agency has no budget to enforce the law against killing them or to figure out a way to keep them from clashing with humans.

“The sea lions are an environmental success story,” Lecky said. “There are approaching 200,000 animals, and the population is increasing at a rate of 6% to 8% a year.”

But although the sea lions may be an environmental success story, fishermen say they are causing real economic harm.

Grader said no systematic study has been done on how much of their catch fishermen are losing to sea lions. He has only the anecdotal evidence given by angry fishermen.

“There are days when a single sea lion will take one or two fish, and other days when a group will work together and 80% or more of the fish that are hooked by a boat are taken,” Grader said.

Lecky said he believes the problem is the legacy of a larger crisis--the loss of habitat and subsequent loss of salmon in the coastal rivers and coastal marine environment.

“Degradation,” he said, “has diminished the size of the fish populations. . . . If that problem was addressed, there would be more fish to go around.”

Repairing the ocean fisheries could take years, he said, adding, however, that the sea lion problem “has become apparent to Congress.”

It was Congress that in 1972 passed the Marine Mammals Protection Act and strengthened it in 1994 to prohibit shooting sea lions except when they threaten life or serious injury. Now, Lecky said, Congress has asked the National Marine Fisheries to come up with recommendations this summer on how to study ways to keep humans and sea lions from tangling.

Before 1994, fishermen could legally shoot sea lions if they were snatching fish from their lines. Since then, they have been permitted only to scare them away with firecrackers, cherry bombs and other nonlethal means.

But sea lions are too smart to fall for those tricks, Grader said. The nonlethal methods never fool them or discourage them for long.

“We try devices to keep them away from the boats, and they catch on quickly,” he said. “We try noisemakers, and those things become like dinner bells to them after a while. They tell them that there is something there worth eating.”

For now, Lecky acknowledged, there is no fail-safe method of keeping sea lions from dogging fishing boats and stealing their catch.

And so the shootings continue.

Lecky said 30 sea lions with gunshot wounds washed up on Northern California beaches last year. At the current pace, he said, the toll will be the same this year.

Sally Smith, spokeswoman for the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, does not expect the attacks to end soon.

The center, which treats wounded and sick animals collected on Northern California beaches, has seen 14 seals and sea lions with gunshot wounds so far this year, Smith said. Eight died or had to be euthanized because their injuries were so grave.

“The first thing we should do is admit there is a problem and sit down together to talk about it,” Smith said. “We have to educate people not to throw scraps overboard and not to feed wild animals. Then we have to think together with the fishermen about ways to replenish the fishing stock.”