Song in my head: ...while head of churches... stand in their false pretenses........Nasio Fontaine
CASCADE LOCKS, Ore. - A particularly crafty sea lion is befuddling the Army Corps of Engineers, who have come to believe the 1,000-pound mammal is either from hell — or from Harvard.
The sea lion and his ilk have been camping out at the base of the Bonneville Dam and munching salmon trying to migrate up the Columbia River to spawn.
Last year they ate about 3.5 percent of the migrating run at a time when salmon numbers were down and demand was up. This year's run begins in earnest in April.
One particular sea lion — named C404 because of a brand applied by a state and federal program — is in a class by himself. He has figured out how to get into fish ladders that help fish past the dam — where endangered salmon and other fish become his easy prey.
The engineers have used everything legal to get rid of him. They have installed gates and tried huge firecrackers, rockets, rubber bullets, and noises sea lions don't like.
But C404 has given them the flipper.
The California sea lion and his kind aren't endangered, but a 1972 federal law protects them. Incorrigibles, however, can be singled out for "lethal removal" through a long, complicated process, said Robert Stansell, a fish biologist with the Corps at Bonneville, about 40 miles east of Portland............. LINK
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