"Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )"
<stderr2@backpacker.com> wrote in news:402C162A.BEE4A548@backpacker.com:

Dave Lister wrote:

"Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )"
<stderr2@backpacker.com> wrote in
news:402BFF74.BC9BC678@backpacker.com:

Bozo, everyone thinks you are an idiot.

Every idiot thinks I'm an idiot. Notice how the subject has changed
from salmon, where I correctly explained the issues and you were
completely wrong, to more personal attacks on me?

Stop taking the idiot's position on stuff and people will stop
thinking you are an idiot.

You are the person making the incorrect statements here. What I said
is correct.

The answer Bozo, is not to shoot sea-lions, but to put the natural
balance in place on the fish end. Stop human harvesting since it was
humans that fucked it up for a start.

Blaming sea-lions for the acts of man indeed....

You just don't know what you are talking about. Here's one thing I
said in this thread:

#begin quote
Spawning habitat has been destroyed by people, dams have been put in
place, salmon have been commercially harvested. We have been using
hatcheries to try to make up for the loss in naturally spawned salmon
and steelhead. When commercial fishers and Indians than take by net
the fish out at sea, they take from the hatchery fish and they take
from the native fish. When Hershel (or whichever sea lions have taken
his place) takes a bite out of each returning fish at the locks, he is
only taking the native fish. That's a big problem.
#end quote

Anything wrong with the above?

And another post from me in this thread:

##begin quote
I know it's illegal but a lot of people are rightly mad at the
government for allowing the sea lion population to explode. Here's a
balanced look at the issues:

http://eesc.orst.edu/salmon/human/predators.html
#begin quote
Salmon once were so abundant, they were a main food source for animals
of the land, air and water.

But as the number of salmon have decreased, concerns have increased
that not enough is being done to control the number of natural
predators that feed on them.

Seals and sea lions are two examples of salmon predators that now seem
out of balance with their prey.

The population of these fur-bearing, ocean-going mammals dropped very
low in the early part of the century due to demand for their pelts.
Fishermen sometimes shot them on sight because they competed for fish
and raided fishing nets.

While seal and sea lion numbers rebounded after the Marine Mammals
Protection Act in 1978 prohibited harming them, the numbers of salmon
have fallen to historic lows.

Some people thought the two trends were related, a view that gained
popular attention by the well-publicized salmon-gobbling antics of
Hershel, the determined sea lion.

In the 1980s, the big sea lion had a big appetite for mature steelhead
salmon. His habit of gobbling them as they swam into the locks in the
Ballard district of Seattle earned him the reputation for almost
single-handedly wiping out a steelhead run.

Hershel also proved to be determined. Despite being moved many miles
from the locks at Seattle, he found his way back.

Nowadays, Hershel is an attraction at Sea World.

But nuisance animals such as Hershel, who go into a feeding frenzy
over migrating salmon, prompted an amendment to the Marine Mammals
Protection Act allowing federal marine fisheries officials to
remove--even kill--particular individuals that are devastating a
salmon run.

"When you have 600-700 adult sea lions (in a given area) and you only
have an expected return of 2,500 wild coho, you have to ask yourself
whether that is an acceptable loss," said Robin Brown, a marine
mammals specialist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

And as wildlife officials struggle to control one predator whose
numbers are on the rise, the impacts of other predators are being
better understood.

A three-year research project by wildlife biologist Daniel Roby of
Oregon State University and OSU researchers Larry Davies and Carl
Schreck indicates that sea birds known as Caspian terns are gobbling
millions of salmon smolts as they swim down the Columbia River estuary
and head toward the Pacific.

The terns have established what may be the largest breeding colony in
the world. More than 8,000 nesting pairs live on a man-made sandbar
called Rice Island, produced during dredging of the Columbia River.
The seven-mile finger of sand has formed the perfect place for the
terns, but its effect on salmon appears devastating.

According to research by the Roby-Schreck team, between 5 million and
20 million salmon smolts headed for the estuary in 1997 fell victim to
terns nesting on Rice Island. That amounted to up to 30 percent of the
smolts that were headed for the estuary.

The numbers vary so greatly because it isn't known how much of the
loss of the smolts was due to terns and how much of it was due to
gulls and cormorants, which also feed on smolts.

Yet as sea birds, the terns are federally protected, once again posing
the question: How do you prevent one protected species from pushing
another closer to extinction?

However, neither Brown nor the history of salmon predator control
supports a full-scale attack on salmon predators such as the terns,
mostly because such efforts in the past have produced unwanted side
effects.

For example, after a 1991 study showed that northern pike, once known
as squawfish, were eating up to 61 percent of the salmon smolts
entering the pool of the John Day Dam, an aggressive program was
started to reduce the number of these native fish.

The plan had some unexpected consequences. Predators that normally ate
the northern pikeminnow began eating salmon instead. The same thing
happened after populations of northern lampreys, once an abundant
eel-like fish that was the preferred food of seals and sea lions,
began declining because of changes in the lamprey habitat.

Non-native predators such as walleye, shad and small-mouthed and
large-mouthed bass also prey upon salmon smolts. Largely unknown is
what sorts of ocean-going predators may be seeking out salmon as food
because their usual supply of prey is not available.

Those concerned with salmon restoration are taking action and
gathering more information and authority so that natural predators
don't wipe out salmon while humans continue efforts to restore salmon
habitat.

Now the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is seeking authority to
remove or occasionally destroy nuisance seals and sea lions without
having to go through federal channels.

The ODFW also is seeking ways to reduce the number of exotic fish that
out-compete or eat salmon.

The way that salmon are released from hatcheries and barged around
dams also is being changed to make it tougher for predators to catch
the salmon when they are most vulnerable.

More will need to be done in the way of research and compromise so
that the struggle for survival between salmon and their predators will
again be a fair fight.
#end quote

--
Bush Lied.

Regime change begins at home.