{"id":567,"date":"2026-04-18T00:20:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T00:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/?p=567"},"modified":"2026-04-18T00:20:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T00:20:00","slug":"congressman-grusenkamp-perez-is-targeting-the-columbia-rivers-voracious-sea-lions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/?p=567","title":{"rendered":"Congressman Grusenkamp Perez is targeting the Columbia River&#8217;s voracious sea lions."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p>Sea lions benefit from federal protections, but exceptions are growing as they relentlessly prey on Colombia&#8217;s fragile salmon populations.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p>VANCOUVER, Wash. \u2014 Congresswoman Marie Grusenkamp Perez of Washington&#8217;s 3rd District is calling on the Trump administration to expand the cull of sea lions along the Columbia River, citing predators&#8217; voracious appetite for endangered salmon and steelhead.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p>Grusenkamp Perez said she recently sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, who is in charge of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its fish management efforts under the Trump administration, requesting further federal action on sea lion culls.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_recirculation article__recirc-long\" style=\"display:none\">\n<div class=\"article__story-continues-banner\">\n<div class=\"article__story-continues-left\">\n                                        <span class=\"article__story-continues-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">&#13;<br \/>\n                                            &#13;<br \/>\n                                        <\/span><br \/>\n                                        <span class=\"article__story-continues-text\">This story continues below.<br \/>\n                                        <\/span>\n                                    <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p>\u201cSea lions ate four times as much salmon as our fishermen and tribes harvest in a year in the Columbia River. During the 2025 spring season, nearly a quarter of the fish at Bonneville Dam will have sea lion bites,\u201d Grusenkamp Perez wrote in the letter. \u201cWe need NOAA to work closely with states and tribes to consider strategies that provide the best results for pinniped removal, including direct lethal removal.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p>Sea lions are federally protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which makes it illegal to harass, hunt, or kill marine mammals. There are some exceptions that allow state and tribal authorities to remove and, in some cases, kill predatory pinnipeds.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p><strong>read more: <\/strong><strong>Oregon culles sea lions in fight over endangered fish<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p>For decades, sea lions and California sea lions have migrated up the Columbia River and its tributaries to feed on fish. This includes habitat for 13 endangered species protected under the Endangered Species Act. Sea lions have come to expect that fish heading upstream to spawn will congregate at dams, waterfalls and other pinch points, making them easy prey.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p>This puts sea lions in direct competition with anglers in Oregon and Washington, as well as tribes in the region, which has taken a toll on declining populations.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p>Grusenkamp Perez argues in the letter that the conditions for sea lion removal are too onerous and expensive because they require wildlife managers to &#8220;trap these Toyota Corolla-sized creatures, remove them from the river, chemically euthanize them with a dart in the presence of a licensed veterinarian, and then transport the carcasses to a tertiary location for disposal and necropsy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_embed\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Gluesenkamp Perez Questions Witnesses at Hearing on Sea Lion Removal Strategies\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pGKiPu29FV4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p>Grusenkamp Perez said she was successful in getting language included in the Commerce, Science, and Justice Appropriations Act of 2026 directing NOAA to study &#8220;what strategies provide the best results for pinniped removal, including direct lethal removal.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p><strong>Related: <\/strong><strong>Some fishermen make a decent living fishing for predators in the Columbia River.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p>\u201cWe ask for your cooperation with the Department to complete this evaluation,\u201d the lawmakers wrote to Lutnick. \u201cWhile this work is important, our fish and fishermen need more urgent solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p>Meanwhile, the lawmaker said he wants to expand the allowable area for removals from the lower Columbia River at Mile 112 (just east of Camas) to Mile 66 near Longview. The far upstream end of the removal area is McNally Dam, just past Umatilla.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p>&#8220;Along the Mile 66 River, in the Cowlitz River where the Lewis and Clark Bridge intersects, the water is no longer salty enough to recreate traditional sea lion habitat,&#8221; Grusenkamp Perez said. &#8220;These species don&#8217;t naturally live in water this fresh, so we should be able to start eradicating them now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p>Numbers tracked by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife through December show that there have been 505 fatal sea lion culls since culls began in 2008. Only six animals were culled in all of 2020, but that number fluctuated in subsequent years, from 26 in 2022 to a high of 67 in 2021.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>#Congressman #Grusenkamp #Perez #targeting #Columbia #Rivers #voracious #sea #lions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sea lions benefit from federal protections, but exceptions are growing as they relentlessly prey on Colombia&#8217;s fragile salmon populations. VANCOUVER, Wash. \u2014 Congresswoman Marie Grusenkamp Perez of Washington&#8217;s 3rd District is calling on the Trump administration to expand the cull of sea lions along the Columbia River, citing predators&#8217; voracious appetite for endangered salmon and &#8230; <a title=\"Congressman Grusenkamp Perez is targeting the Columbia River&#8217;s voracious sea lions.\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/?p=567\" aria-label=\"Read more about Congressman Grusenkamp Perez is targeting the Columbia River&#8217;s voracious sea lions.\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[981,977,978,984,979,982,678,980,983],"class_list":["post-567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-columbia","tag-congressman","tag-grusenkamp","tag-lions","tag-perez","tag-rivers","tag-sea","tag-targeting","tag-voracious"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}