Our local Congresswoman, 3rd District Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, joined a House Committee on Natural Resources hearing yesterday to raise concerns about sea lion predation in the Pacific Northwest. During the meeting, Representative Gluesenkamp Perez talked about what she called the urgent need to remove California and Steller sea lions from the Columbia River and its tributaries.

She says that despite recent efforts to remove sea lions, progress has been limited. In 2024, only 27 California and 21 Steller sea lions were removed at Bonneville Dam. As of July this year, just 26 and 11 have been removed, and she says that is largely because of the difficult process laid out when Congress amended the Marine Mammal Protection Act to expand lethal removal authority.

She stated, “I’m concerned that the factors contributing to this severe underutilization—namely the cost and the onerous back and forth of trapping the creature, identifying its threat, shaking a can of pennies at it, retrapping and then finally darting—contribute heavily. We’ve done some back-of-the-envelope math to try and determine the cost to remove sea lions under the permit. From our estimates, it costs over $38,000 per removal from the Columbia River. That’s roughly $203 per salmon saved in state and federal taxpayer dollars.”

Representative Gluesenkamp Perez called on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to continue removal efforts and examine best practices for sea lion removal, including direct lethal removal, and said she secured language in the FY26 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Bill.