Seals and sea lions are decimating salmon. It's time to manage them | Opinion

After sounding the alarm for decades about the need to manage outsized populations of pinnipeds, the treaty tribes are encouraged by a bipartisan bill to amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and are grateful for the collaborative effort from co-sponsors Reps. Michael Baumgartner, R-District 5, and Emily Randall, D-District 6, to support salmon recovery.

Called the Northwest Endangered Salmon Predation Prevention Act, the law would allow the lethal removal of pinnipeds to protect salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and other threatened species in Washington and the Columbia River watershed.

The pinnipeds of concern are harbor seals and California and Steller sea lions, predators that have driven Pacific Northwest salmon to functional extinction because the 1972 MMPA has no provisions for managing these top predators when the ecosystem is out of balance.

The harbor seal population is at carrying capacity - the maximum size the environment can support without degrading resources - and both of the invasive sea lion populations continue to increase. Tribal fishers have watched growing numbers of seals and sea lions travel into river mouths and upriver, interfering with our harvest and feeding on the declining number of salmon.

State legislators directed the independent Washington State Academy of Sciences to synthesize what we know about pinniped predation, where the knowledge gaps are, where additional research is needed, and assess the scientific and technical aspects of potential management actions.

Published in 2022, “Pinniped Predation on Salmonids in the Washington Portions of the Salish Sea and Outer Coast” concluded: “Taken together, the preponderance of evidence supports the hypothesis that current populations of pinnipeds are a contributing factor in the decline and depression of salmon populations in Washington State waters. … Strategic and appropriately scaled adaptive management of pinniped populations are key to resolving these uncertainties but likely will require lethal removals.”

Salmon are a treaty-protected resource. Without them, tribes can’t meaningfully exercise our right to harvest fish. They also are a keystone species of this ecosystem, with some providing nutrients to the rivers where they die after spawning, while others feed critically endangered southern resident orcas.

As implemented, the MMPA prohibits any action that could effectively abate pinniped predation, which has hindered the protection, conservation and recovery of ESA-protected salmon.

The proposed legislation closes a policy gap between the MMPA and ESA. Allowing pinniped predators to drive down the populations of threatened salmon is inconsistent with the expressed intention of federal laws. We can’t protect both marine mammals and endangered species when marine mammals are the threat to the endangered species.

We have tried nonlethal measures such as acoustic deterrents and hazing to address the overpopulation of these predators, but the effects were temporary. Studies have found that seals and sea lions learned that the food reward was worth the irritation of acoustic deterrents and continued preying on salmon anyway.

This legislation is the first step toward adaptive management, allowing intentional lethal removal of pinnipeds to be carried out by eligible entities, including federally recognized tribes with treaty-reserved fishing rights in western Washington.

The federal government has a trust responsibility to protect tribal treaty rights, which requires active adaptive management of threats such as pinniped predation.

We need to take action now, because allowing pinniped predation to continue unregulated is an existential threat to already depressed salmon stocks. We are looking at a future without salmon, which would have cascading impacts disrupting ecosystem function, resiliency and the food supply.

The only way to restore balance to the ecosystem is to move forward with legislation that allows fisheries managers to control the populations of the marine mammals that are taking more salmon than many stocks can endure.

Ed Johnstone is chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.