author: The Portland Animal Defense League
e-mail:
info@pdxanimaldefense.com
For Immediate Release:
Today, the PDX grassroots animal liberation organization, The Portland Animal Defense League (PDX-ADL), announces demonstrations against the proposed killing of Sea Lions by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
The planned killing of Sea Lions by the US Fish and Wildlife Service is simply a mistake that most Portlanders oppose.
Record level over-predation by human fishing, combined with the impact of dams have reduced the wild Salmon's numbers to a fraction of their historical populations.
Now, the US Fish and Wildlife Service plans to "avenge" the remaining population of Salmon by slaughtering our Sea Lions.
This is simply an emotional, political, irrational, and totally ineffective response to a very serious ecological issue.
Over fifty percent of Salmon runs are destroyed by dams. Add to that the recent increase of allowable fish kill quotas from nine percent to twelve percent, and we must face the fact that humans are to blame for this issue, not the native Sea Lions that consume a meager four percent of the run.
Officials have floated a plan to to the press stating the option of capturing Sea Lions and holding them until 'homes' can be found for them. We know this to be a trick to placate the public into a sense of comfort.
In reality, even the director of the Portland zoo, who is backing the slaughter, has opposed 'adopting' any Sea Lions.
The Sea Lions will be slaughtered as quickly as possible, as far away from the public eye as possible. They will be shot on land or in the water, where they stand a very high chance of being injured and dying slowly over a course of days.
The native Sea Lions, who have inhabited the Columbia River and successfully cohabited with the Salmon for thousands of years, are a precious part of our natural resources.
They deserve to live and flourish in the wild as they always have.
They do not deserve to be injured, slaughtered, or tortured to serve a misplaced sense of vengeance.
PDX-ADL will organize and attend a demonstration against this slaughter on Friday April 4th at 4:00 PM outside of the US Fish and Wildlife Service office located at 911 NE 11th Ave Portland, OR 97232.
We urge all environmentally conscious Portlanders to join us.
The Portland Animal Defense League is a grassroots animal liberation organization, dedicated to exposing animal abuse in all of its forms. Our goal is to compel others to evaluate the mistreatment of animals, and be persuaded to eliminate animal exploitation. ###
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Put me on record as against any killing of sea lions to save salmon.
A lack of human common sense and excessive fishing has killed off most salmon. Back in 1996 Salmon should have been listed as endangered, instead they were listed as "threatened". I was at the NMFS office protest in 1996, the day "endangered" was announced.
On October 31, 1996, NMFS listed the salmon as a threatened species . . .