Nancy Pelosi salmon bill

[clambake]

i would have posted this story, but i'm too ill to search. has anyone else seen this bill? this country is screwed.

[Viva Las Espuelas]

http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/JohnBoehner/2008/05/12/farm_bill_yet_another_example_of_democrats_broken_ promises_on_earmark_reform

further proof that a simple anti-bush stance won't give us "change". you stupid, stupid, people. won't you just think for once. YES YOU CAN!!! and maybe you should.

[clambake]

http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/JohnBoehner/2008/05/12/farm_bill_yet_another_example_of_democrats_broken_ promises_on_earmark_reform

further proof that a simple anti-bush stance won't give us "change". you stupid, stupid, people. won't you just think for once. YES YOU CAN!!! and maybe you should.

hey, broken record, i didn't say anything about bush.

we all know that bush is the biggest shit stain ever smeared on this country. i was talking about this fucked up salmon bill, and no one has wasted more money than the current administration.

so don't worry. i'm not here to pick on your boyfriend.

[Wild Cobra]

I don't know about the bill. So much going on in congress. My immediate thought is anything sponsored by that fascist bitch has to be bad. Does it address the California Sea Lion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Sea_Lion)?

In Oregon, at Bonneville Dam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonneville_dam), which is a short drive from me, we have serious issues on the salmon and steelhead runs. Over the years, there were several costly steps taken to improve the salmon runs. Now, over the couple years with record runs, the sea lions found this as a great spot to sit and eat the salmon as they use the fish ladder. The salmon don't have a chance. Environmentalists who cried about the salmon are now crying about the sea lions because we want to eliminate them at the dam! There is now a program of trapping and moving some, but they let most stay to feast as they wish. There are so many, the salmon are still in jeopardy. Each year it seems they bring more and more friends. When the salmon runs are low, they cause a serious problem. When the runs are good, they kill maybe just under 5% of the salmon migrating upstream.

Cannot win. Always someone fighting real changes and progress.

Here are some links with axcepts:

More Sea Lions at Bonneville Dam Enjoying Salmon Cuisine
by Barry Espenson
Columbia Basin Bulletin - May 16, 2003 (http://www.bluefish.org/sealion4.htm)


Among those fishes are salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Observations of one or two sea lions have been reported in the Bonneville tailrace in almost every year since the 1980s, according to Corps of Engineers researchers who are evaluating "pinniped" predation at the dam. The National Marine Fisheries Service's 2000 biological opinion on hydrosystem operations called for research to determine the marine mammals have on listed stocks at Bonneville, in the Columbia estuary and elsewhere. The BiOp says that planned Columbia/Snake river federal hydro operations would jeopardize the existence of eight of the 12 listed stocks and prescribes measures that the agency felt necessary to avoid jeopardy.

"We've identified roughly three times as many individuals as last year," said Robert Stansell, who's leading the Corps of Engineer study. In the initial year of the study, 2002, the researchers estimated that at least 29 individual sea lions, and as many as 36, were identified in the Bonneville tailrace over the study period. As many as 11 lions were spotted below the tailrace on any one day. This year that total climbed to as many as 15.

Snacking sea lions scarfing up sparse Columbia chinook run
Thursday, April 14, 2005
By Hal Bernton (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002241109_damlion14m.html)


As of late Tuesday, about 200 of the spring chinook, which are protected under the Endangered Species Act, had gone through the dam's fish passage, compared with the 10-year average of 3,085 for the same date.

Crafty sea lion confounds engineers
By Rick Bowmer, AP
3/31/2006 (http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2006-03-31-sealion_x.htm)


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.

Fisheries supports sea lion removal
Friday, January 18, 2008
BY ERIK ROBINSON, Columbian staff writer (http://www.columbian.com/news/localNews/2008/01/01182008_Fisheries-supports-sea-lion-removal.cfm)


As many as 30 salmon-munching sea lions per year may be rounded up, held for 48 hours and killed if a suitable home can't be found in an aquarium, zoo or research center, under a proposal released Thursday by the National Luck_The_Fakers_Marine Fisheries Service.

Some problem animals could be shot by marksmen on or near Bonneville Dam, which sea lions have adopted in recent years as their own buffet.



Tribal groups endorsed the states' request.

"Lack of action toward the real and immediate threat of sea lion predation is unacceptable," Fidelia Andy, chairwoman of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, said in a prepared statement.

In recent years, a growing number of sea lions have migrated 140 miles upriver from the Pacific Ocean to target adult salmon arriving at Bonneville. They are taking an increasingly large share of salmon arriving at the dam. Last year, observers watched sea lions gobble almost 4,000 salmon from Jan. 1 through May 31 - about 4.2 percent of all the salmon arriving at the dam during that period.

Some of those salmon are protected by the Endangered Species Act.

Biologists with the Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the dam, documented the number of sea lions jumping from 30 in 2002 to more than 100 the following year.