Friday, March 28, 2008
Three tragedies are brewing up the Columbia River at Bonneville Dam, tragedies that we're fast running out of time to avert.
One: The government has decided to take up arms against sea lions.
Two: Such carnage has no chance of fulfilling the wishful thinking of its advocates.
Three: This passes for "management" by the states and the National Marine Fisheries Service in 2008.
Sure, government officials are in a jam. Despite a recent increase in the particular run that sea lions feed on, the salmon of the great Columbia have been struggling for decades -- and we all know why. Bonneville and the other dams that straddle the river have compromised the fabled fish's ability to travel, reproduce, survive and thrive. Spawning streams upriver are despoiled by clear-cut logging. Agriculture runoff has tainted the once pristine river.
Killing sea lions does nothing to remedy these things. Instead, this backward-looking idea -- and all the tedious meetings and negotiations that led to it -- amounts to just another stall, and haven't we seen far too many of those already? Except this time, up to 85 sea lions a year will pay the price -- either killed or captured.
Government scientists who have studied the river say that sea lions eat about 4 percent of the migrating salmon reaching Bonneville Dam. If that share sounds worrisome, consider this: Quota increases will allow fishermen to take up to 12 percent of the river's salmon, at least for the short run, until this ill-advised scheme is revealed to be just another management failure and the salmon wind up worse off.
Logic, science and compassion all argue against resorting to guns. When faithfully read, the law also forbids it. Sober-minded residents of the region need to sound off now if there is any chance to avert these tragedies.
The people of the Northwest rejoice in their proximity to wildness. I know, I've lived and worked here, my family lives here, and a share of my heart will always be in this corner of the country. Residents rightly credit themselves with a special degree of appreciation for the living panoramas that surround this wonderful region. They also understand that along the Columbia, we need more of nature in all its glorious variety, not less -- not when it's so very precious.
When we look at the argument through that lens, the killing of sea lions in the false expectation of saving salmon disgraces both.
The wild salmon of the Pacific Northwest are not just an ordinary commodity like wine grapes or sweet onions. They are living components of a spellbinding ecological system. So are the sea lions.
Where does this kind of management myopia ultimately lead? For a chilling answer, let your thoughts drift south to Los Angeles. Salmon once graced the rivers below Point Conception, too. But in their hubris, Southern Californians thought only about themselves and the moment. Only later, when the grandeur had vanished, when the rivers were sucked dry and salmon were but vague memories, did they recognize what they'd lost.
Oregon doesn't have to follow this blind march backward. It's no longer the Wild West. We cannot shoot our way out of this one.
John Balzar is senior vice president of communications for the Humane Society of the United States, based in Washington, D.C. He formerly lived in Portland as a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times.
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