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Willamette Falls a River of Tears

45 views · Published 10 November 2017 · 3:09 · Indexed 9 October 2026

Channel: Sea lion Defense Brigade · 2017 · Education

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A better rendition of an old favorite, and thanks for watching!

There are many steps we can take to help protect and increase populations of wild salmon. Toxic remediation of our waterways, breaching dams, installing fish screens across the thousands of water bypasses and culverts that remain across Oregon, and Washington State that can kill millions of wild salmon in a season and removing man- made obstacles that stun disorientate and kill fish and embrace serious hatchery, and harvest, reform will offer more protection for our tax paying dollars and wild salmon than scapegoating and killing sea lions never will.

1. The Willamette River does not meet Clean Water criteria nor EPA benchmarks as suitable habitat to support resident aquatic life and cold water fish that will not succumb to the negative health effects of PCB's, DDT's, Dioxins, Furans, Mercury, and endocrine disruptors that bioaccumulate as they move up the food chain.

2. HR 953: The Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act of 2017, which passed the House last summer, would exempt pesticide spraying near bodies of water from regulation under an existing EPA general Clean Water Act permit.

3. Commercial Purse seines are back on the river after being banned for 65 years to scoop out all the hatchery salmon that ODFW dumps into Oregon's waters despite what the weight of empirical evidence that shows hatchery salmon can alter the very DNA and are responsible for weakening the genetics of the wild fish in just one life cycle which is quite the opposite of the sea lion's relationship with the wild fish.

4. The majority of the populations of fish in the Willamette/ Columbia River system are hatchery and NIS species. These fish populations now the majority out- compete the wild fish for resources and millions of wild fish are predated upon by Bass, channel catfish, Walleye and Yellow perch that are flourishing in the warming waters of the PNW.

5. Sea Lions and other marine mammals are very important to the Pacific North West, (PNW) ecology. The marine mammal's fecal flora are the corner stone of the food web for all life in our rivers and oceans. Marine mammals need to remain protected and treasured for they feed wild fish, weed out the weak, and the sick to help strengthen the genetics of the wild fish that have survived side by side with marine mammals in the Columbia/ Willamette Rivers for over ten thousand years without ODFW.

6. Sea Lions and other marine mammals assist in prey distribution throughout the CR estuary and that more salmon have returned and crossed over the Bonneville Dam to then only to die behind a dam in a warm slack water lakes created by the dam's reservoirs- which are teeming with diseases, piscivorous hatchery and NIS fish and plant species.

7. Wild Salmon returning to the Snake River to spawn must cross eight dams on the Columbia River-- twice in their lifetime.

8. Breaching the four lower dams on the Snake River will improve wild fish passage, and help protect populations of endangered species from swimming closer to extinction in warm slack water lakes than scapegoating and killing sea lions below the Bonneville Dam will not.

9. Scapegoating sea lions and other marine mammals and wild salmon is merely a smoke screen to allow industry to continue with bad business as usual. Ignoring the ultimate cause of wild salmon mortality means that the BPA, US ACOE, DOE, DEQ, USDA, PGE, CRITFC, ODFW, WDFW, IDFW, ODOT, Big Pharma, Big polluters, and Big Oil all need a scapegoat to create a smoke screen so they appear as if they are at least doing something for wild salmon . Although in reality their actions and violent policies undermine ESA species protection, and is not supported by empirical evidence, as a means to increase populations of wild salmon, and destroys the NEPA process undermining accountability to hold any of these agencies and any shooter person responsible. Thus further eroding the public's trust for these agencies and will force us to trade in biologically sound science for hypothetical what if's, and insatiable greedy and violent policies which does not require any weight of evidence at all.

10. Investments into wild salmon habitat and wild salmon recovery begin with embracing the time honored and ancient relationships that marine mammals and wild salmon have in the Columbia River estuary and by supporting these relationships and not allowing agencies that want to hold NO accountability unravel them and then we will actually start to protect some wild salmon habitat and 120 other species that rely on this sacred fish for their very sustenance not sport.

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