Sea lions ate fewe Oregon salmon this year

PORTLAND, Ore., June 28 (UPI) -- Sea lions in Oregon ate their share, but a smaller percentage, of the spring salmon run at Bonneville Dam this year, federal officials say.

The animals have in recent years congregated 145 miles up the Columbia River, where they can target spring salmon at the artificial bottleneck created by the dam, The Seattle Times reported Saturday.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the dam, observed 4,230 salmon and steelhead trout eaten by almost 100 sea lions.

The figure represents about 2.8 percent of the total salmon arriving at the dam. The number was less than the 4 percent consumption rate of recent years.

The proportional decrease is not necessarily exciting news, said Robert Stansell, a fisheries biologist for the corps.

Stansell said the proportion was smaller because this year's overall run happened to be greater than in some past years; the total number of fish eaten is roughly the same, he said.

"They're not reducing the number of fish being taken," Stansell said. "They take their quota no matter what."

Observers at the dam calculated sea-lion predation between Jan. 1 and May 31, with most of the sea lions arriving with the bulk of the salmon run in early April through mid-May.