January
12, 2019
Authorities
in the western US state of Oregon have euthanized four sea lions in the last
month as part of a program to protect salmon runs and steelhead trout that are
at risk of going extinct.
A
spokesman for the state's Department of Fish and Wildlife told AFP the lethal
removals of the California sea lions began in mid-December and would continue
through May.
Rick
Swart said the killings were necessary to save migrating steelhead that have
been ravaged by the sea lions in recent years as they swim upstream from the
ocean to spawn.
"Our
scientists believe that if these sea lions aren't removed, that run of
steelhead could go extinct anytime," Swart said.
He said
salmon were also threatened by the sea mammals, whose population has exploded
since the Marine Mammal Protection Act was passed in 1972.
"What's
going on here is we have a run of wild native Oregon steelhead and they are
moving right now from the ocean upstream to spawn," Rick Swart said.
"And when they get to Willamette Falls in Oregon, in downtown Portland,
they come up against the waterfall and a dam and it takes them a while to get
across that."
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