The materials for this article were collected during a three-month fieldwork in California (28 March 2022 - 9 July 2022). Several sources of information were mobilised:
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the first is the consultation of local newspapers (La Jolla Light, San Diego Reader, Daily Breeze, Monterey Herald, Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union Tribune...) and websites from which it is possible to reconstruct the media history of the subject;
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the second is the observation of interactions between pinnipeds and human populations in the field, in San Diego (La Jolla resort) and in the ports of Newport Beach, Los Angeles (Redondo Beach, Marina del Rey) and San Francisco (Pier 39);
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the third, and most important, is the conduct of interviews with local stakeholders, supplemented by email exchanges (Table 1);
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fourth, participation in a workshop on pinniped depredation organised by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service[1] (NMFS) with fishermen on 1-2 June 2022, and participation in a California Coastal Commission[2] (CCC) meeting on 8 April 2022 to discuss beach closures to allow sea lions to remain undisturbed during their breeding season
Geographically, the study covers the entire California coast from Crescent City (on the Oregon border) to San Diego (on the Mexican border) (Figure 2), with the addition of the Columbia River Basin (between the states of Oregon and Washington) because of its interest in addressing human-pinniped interactions.
Table 1 : positions and organizations of interviewed stakeholders
Position
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Organization
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Council Member (La Jolla)
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City of San Diego
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Recreational Fisheries Coordinator
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NOAA
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Research Fish Biologist, Office of Science and Technology
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NOAA
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Branch Chief, Protected Resources Division
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NOAA
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California Stranding Network Coordinator
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NOAA
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Administrative Assistant
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Mammal marine center of Crescent City and Crescent City harbor
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Harbor master, past president of the California Association of Harbor Masters
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Harbor of Crescent
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Harbor Master
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Newport Beach Marina
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Harbor Master
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Harbor of San Francisco (Pier 39)
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Harbor Manager
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Redondo Beach Harbor (Port Royal Marina)
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President
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La Jolla Park and Beaches Association
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President
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La Jolla Park and Beaches Association
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Contracts Administration Director, Project Management Director
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Deterrent Company- Smith-Root, Inc.
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Chief executive officer
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Deterrent Company - SealStop
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Board member
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Dana point boaters association
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President
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Friends of Children’s Pool
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Docent
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Sierra Club Seal Society
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Docent
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Sierra Club Seal Society
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President
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San Diego Fishermen’s Working Group
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This paper focuses on the first two stages of the process: i) the colonisation of socio-ecosystems by pinnipeds, accompanied by the emergence of a crisis and conflicts; ii) the first experiments carried out by the actors to try to resolve the crisis and the difficulties encountered.
Cohabitation and partition in harbors
Between 2000 and 2010, the tension between human and pinnipeds in the harbors worsened and led the managers of these ports to realize that they would not be able to recover the balance that existed before the sea lions colonized these areas. This will trigger a phase of important innovations.
The first original initiative of port managers was to agree to cede territory to sea lions. Thus, for half of the ports surveyed in our study, the managers progressively built floating docks specially adapted to the weight of the pinnipeds so that the latter could have a place to settle. This partitioning of the territory was possible because of the tendency of sea lions to group and pile up on top of each other, and thus to occupy small areas.
These areas dedicated to sea lions are located in strategic places, which suit the needs of the pinnipeds[3] but also the need to establish a minimum distance between them and human populations. They are far enough away from boats so that boaters do not have to endure significant noise and odor pollution. However, not all ports are able to find a suitable site - for example, Newport Beach finally give up this option after having imagined different scenarios.
San Francisco's Pier 39 is installing 15 sea lion pontoons, the Port of Crescent City 12. Port Royal Marina is building a barge in 2015 that can withstand the weight of sea lions after the one that housed that population sank and created a major crisis in human non-human interactions. The ports of Ocean Side, King's Harbor and Morro Bay are doing the same. These docks cost between $5,000 and $10,000 per unit, which represents significant investments. They are usually financed by raising funds from harbor users and merchants on a voluntary or mandatory basis. But the initiative can also come from associations present on the site and having a positive vision of the presence of sea lions, as in Morro Bay[4] where it is the Friends of the Morro Bay Harbor Department who organize the collection. These pontoons need to be cleaned regularly to avoid excessive odor problems - usually once a week - which requires powerful seawater pumps.
Port managers justify leaving part of the territories they manage to non-humans for ethical reasons (recognition of the spatial needs of these large mammals) or pragmatic reasons (impossible to do otherwise). Those who invoke the environmental purpose will speak of "sanctuary docks" or "sea lions islands" - terms with a positive connotation - while those who mention on the pragmatic dimension refers rather to "sacrificed docks" - which translates into a renunciation.
While the docks built specifically for sea lions are used by them, some individuals still try to rest on the pontoons dedicated to pleasure boats. To avoid a "land-grab" scenario, and in light of the legitimacy of enforcing clear boundaries between humans and non-humans, harbor workers scare sea lions away with wheelbarrows, water jets or other tools to get them to leave. This is very time consuming and more and more ports are going to use companies that offer new solutions to prevent pinnipeds from settling. The challenge is to deploy equipment that meets the needs of managers while ensuring compliance with the MMPA[5]. The improvement of deterrent systems is thus becoming a decisive element for sustainable cohabitation between humans and non-humans in Californian ports. Two companies have been successful in this market.
The first is SealStop, founded in 2011, which offers a fixed device of small spinners originally used in field irrigation systems (sprinklers), which prevent pinnipeds from gaining sufficient support to climb onto port infrastructure or boats (Figure 1b).
The second is Smith-Root Inc. founded in 1964, which specializes in supplying equipment for harbors and fishermen, and which developed a new branch in 2014 dedicated to the production of electric plates specially adapted for pontoons - whose function is to make it very uncomfortable for mammals to get on but not to harm them (Figure 2b).
These companies have their products validated with NMFS[6] so that they can guarantee ports that they will not be incriminated of generating impacts on these protected species, while guaranteeing them that the animals will disappear from locations where these systems are deployed (Figures 1 and 2).
While these devices are undoubtedly effective, they are also very expensive. For example, three meters of electric plates cost $6,000, and the price rises to $10,000 or $15,000 depending on the installation and control options. The small spinner system is less expensive ($750 for three meters) and has several advantages: "Maintenance free; No electricity, water or sounds; Zero injury or stress; No electric shock which is very inhuman; Passive works; 100% success rate" (SealStop, CEO).
Thirty percent of the pontoons and boats have at least one piece of equipment dedicated to the repulsion of sea lions according to the CEO of Seal-Stop. The manager of Newport Beach mentions a ratio of 30-40% of boats equipped for his port. On this declarative basis - difficult to confirm in the absence of official figures on the subject - it is possible to underline the growing economic weight of these companies providing operational solutions regarding the problems of interactions with pinnipeds. There are indeed 18 ports in California, the largest of which accommodate several thousand boats - Newport Beach (9000), Marina del Rey (5200), Dana Point (2400), etc. According to harbor managers, the average cost of equipment is around $1,000 per boat. Without risking a precise estimate, it is easy to understand that the increase in sea lions has allowed the development of a market worth millions, and probably tens of millions of dollars... equivalent to a similar cost for thousands of sea users.
While it is important to ensure that sea lions remain in their territories, it is also crucial to channel tourists. Tourists are very difficult to dissuade once they have decided to see sea lions up close and take pictures with them. Signs posted in most harbors stating that pinnipeds should not be approached or fed are rarely read or, when they are, do not seem to create sufficient incentives. Tourists can't help but approach seemingly harmless pinnipeds to take a picture to post on their social networks. All port managers agree on this observation.
This is why, in addition to the technical solutions mentioned above, ports are also willing to invest in new human resources. All harbor managers mention that a portion of their staff time is dedicated to managing human-sea lion interactions (minimum of 15% of a full-time employee), both to keep pinnipeds off the pontoons and to keep tourists from getting too close to the mammals. According to the interviewees, the guards hired to manage the sea lions spend more time dealing with tourists, a job that is particularly hard during summer.
Some ports have recruited a full-time person to take charge of the multiplication of these interactions, such as San Francisco's Pier 39. Others have taken advantage of this to develop collaborations with naturalist associations, such as the port of Crescent City, which has hired a pinniped specialist whose work time is shared between this port and the North Coast Marine Mammal Center. These partnerships with marine mammal care centers are multiplying. In San Francisco, this collaboration has gone as far as the creation of a Sea lions center on the port's own site, to provide information on the species. The estimated annual cost of these human resources is between $25,000 and $50,000 per year for each port.
To ensure that these efforts are effective, managers have also asked boat owners to work with port officials. Best practice guides are distributed to harbor officers on how to interact with sea lions. Most managers have changed the rules of the harbors by prohibiting feeding, even involuntarily, pinnipeds. It is also forbidden to use bait in harbors and, in many cases, to fish in them. For boats returning from a fishing trip, whether professional or recreational, it is forbidden to empty the fish in the harbor or even to clean the holds or the deck if catches have been stored there, in order to avoid attracting sea lions. To ensure that these rules are followed and that users do not complain too much about these new rules, harbor authorities have invested in facilities to clean fish or fishing vessel holds without any organic waste being discharged into the sea. The costs of these new facilities have again been significant.
Harbor managers can go so far as to oblige boat owners to equip their boats and pontoons with equipment that prevents sea lions from climbing onto them. The Port of Newport Beach has a contractual requirement that all new arrivals have to buy a deterrent system within seven days. If sea lions are repeatedly observed on boat, fines are sent (the amount of which is between $100 and $500 depending on the owner's speed of reaction). The port also encourages the adoption of the SealStop system to ensure that the equipment purchased by port users is effective.
Finally, most harbor managers have also begun to gamble that pinnipeds could be a source of opportunity if they managed their interactions with humans strategically. To understand this, it is important to know that harbors on the West Coast of America are as much about mooring boats as they are about tourism, where many businesses thrive. The reasoning is this: if sea lions attract tourists, it's potentially good for business! The economic benefits for the ports are difficult to establish but are probably very high. In San Francisco they are considered "colossal" ("Financial incomes are huge"), by the head of the port between 1990 and 2020 (Sheila Chandor). In 2007, Pier 39's marketing department estimates that free publicity from the San Francisco sea lions stories reached 12 million people and generated an advertising value equivalent to $472,000. As the port manager points out, sea lion viewing has gradually become part of the Pier 39 package, making it the second most visited site in San Francisco (after the Golden Bridge), with 100,000 tourists per year.
The success is such that the sea lions become not only the symbol of the port but also an emblem of San Francisco. Thus, on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the arrival of the sea lions in 2020, the Mayor of the city (London Breed) has decreed January 16th "Sea lion day in the City". To mark the occasion, 30 hand-painted statues by local artists were placed in various locations throughout the city.
In response to the success of Pier 39, other ports followed a similar approach. In the Crescent City, the recent renewal of the sanctuary docks provided an opportunity to install one of these sea lion pontoons right in front of the businesses to facilitate animal viewing. The cost of the odor and noise nuisance was considered to be less than the benefits generated by the visual proximity with these marine mammals. In Morro Bay, the amount of funds raised to build a new sea lion dock exceeded expectations, so the Friends of Morro Bay Harbor invested in fixed binoculars to facilitate remote viewing of the mammals.
Most managers now recognize that pinnipeds are a benefit to their business. Opinions on the subject range from neutral (where the disadvantages are outweighed by the benefits) to very positive. This is an important shift in beliefs about the economic model related to port activities. In any event, all port managers agree that the crisis period is behind them and that they have found solutions for human populations to coexist with California sea lions. Some of the strategies adopted are now transcribed into very detailed management plans for pinniped-human interactions (see for example County of Los Angeles Department of Beaches and Harbor, 2019).
Things are more complicated for San Diego beaches.
Sparing on the beaches
Faced with the significant costs of managing the perpetual conflicts between seal advocates and user advocates on Children's Pool Beach, the City of San Diego proposed in 2014 to simply close the beach during the seal breeding season, i.e., from December 15 to May 15. Aware of the explosive situation in the area, the CCC[7] approved and endorsed the ban on beach access for six months of the year.
The effects of this radical decision were not long in coming. While the police had been called 153 times between December 15 and May 15, 2013, only 35 calls were received in 2014, 12 in 2015, and 3 in 2018 (Seal Conservancy, 2019). No longer having access to the beach, the sources of conflict disappear, even if some residents experience this as an illegal decision.
Armed with this result, after years of conflict, the city has been able to renew the closure every year since then, and in 2019, the CCC decided that this beach will remain closed from December 15 to May 15 for the next 10 years. The turbulent history of interactions between harbor seals and beach users at Children's Pool in La Jolla thus ends: the seals have earned the right to settle there permanently, undisturbed for six months of the year.
At the same time and a few hundred meters away, at Boomer beach, interactions between humans and pinnipeds have become unmanageable. During the summer of 2021, the Seal Sierra Club Society sends weekly videos to the City of San Diego and NOAA clearly showing an ongoing violation of the MMPA. They show tourists getting far too close to sea lions and their cubs. The situation is made even more delicate by the fact that the big males can be very aggressive during this time, unlike the seals in the Children's Pool. On August 10, the city of San Diego decided to close half of the beach in an emergency. This closure will last only one month (until September 15). But in 2022, the City of San Diego anticipated a recurrence of the problems observed the previous year and asked the CCC for permission to close the beach to visitors for the entire period during which the pups were being fed by their mothers.
On April 8, 2022, a public meeting of the CCC offered the different parties the opportunity to express themselves on this proposal. Discussions took place on the legitimacy of closing a beach that has long been used by humans. Ecological arguments (without scientific proof) were put forward by members of the La Jolla Park and Beaches Association for the CCC[8] to give up the closure: according to them, i) the sea lion population has reached the carrying capacity on a California-wide scale, ii) the high concentration of the animals generates nuisances for humans but also for biodiversity as a whole, as they consume many species. Finally, the association underlines that Boomer beach is an emblematic beach of the city and that many people use it to access the sea and practice their leisure activities.
While the representatives of the City of San Diego would like to see the beach closed to visitors, to avoid a repeat of the crisis that took place at the Children's Pool, they do not see any problem with providing a passageway for recreational users of the sea (swimmers, underwater hunters, surfers, etc.). But these arguments and the position of the city will not be heard by the CCC, which will impose a strict and complete closure of half the beach for the period from May 25 to September 15. This closure will be renewable but it will have to be supported in 2023 by a follow-up of the effects of the closure on the pinniped populations.
One element that explains the decision to move the pathway for ocean access to the southern end of Boomer beach is undoubtedly the previous scenario at the Children's Pool where the decision to allow humans and non-humans to coexist, by separating them with a simple rope, led to an explosion of conflicts. Indeed, leaving a pathway to humans means leaving room for interpretation on who will or will not be allowed to use it, on the exact limits of the pathway, etc., which means a lot of time wasted in managing this. And since several examples have shown that the information on the signs was not read and not taken into account by tourists, the CCC preferred to adopt a clear land sparing rule. La Jolla's City Council member (Joe La Cava) puts it very well: « Tipping point when it was not manageable after signs (...) the cheapest, the most efficient is to close the beach ». To help enforce this new rule, two rangers are hired by the City of San Diego, which represents a cost of $150,000 per year for the city.
Decisions in favor of pinnipeds at Children's Pool and Boomer Beach reflect a shift in the perception of officials. The La Jolla City Council member (Joe La Cava) supports the presence of pinnipeds in La Jolla, expressing the view that the benefits of pinnipeds outweigh the costs. This is not in line with the position of the previous La Jolla City Council members who had championed beach access.
It appears that the crisis has passed in the City of La Jolla. This is the opinion of the majority of the people interviewed on the subject, but tensions are still high. Indeed, local people have the feeling, easily understandable, that they pay the cost of the tourist stupid behaviors. Joe La Cava : « What is frustrating I guess for local people is that the problem comes from tourists but not from locals. Indeed, the latter do not approach, as tourists do, the pinnipeds. However, it is these local people who lose access to the site because of the irresponsible practices of tourists. » The worry of local users today is that the sea lion population will move to La Jolla Cove Beach - 50 meters from Boomer Beach - which is extensively used by residents and tourists, and which is also the last beach still fully accessible to humans. La Jolla Cove Beach is also iconic in the United States and in the surfing world, for which it represents a key La Jolla heritage. According to sea lion population specialists, this scenario is unlikely because these mammals like to be very close to each other and do not hesitate to crowd together when they are too numerous.
However, interactions between sea lions and tourists at La Jolla Cove are increasing. The City of San Diego has indicated that it is not considering closing the beach as a result of this event. But an accident could precipitate things.
Deterring at the Sea
On the open ocean, the situation has not improved. The fishermen have not found a solution to keep the sea lions and seals away from their boats and their catch. The discourse of the fishermen at sea is very fatalistic. As they like to repeat, they cannot win the battle against pinnipeds ("We cannot compete"), underlining the unfair competition they are facing. This argument, which had some weight in the second half of the 20th century, no longer seems to have any in the first half of the 21st century, when public opinion is very favorable to the seals' cause.
The fishermen also point out that the ecosystems in which they work have completely changed because, in addition to the pinnipeds, other protected species have seen their populations increase. For example, white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias), which hunt pinnipeds, are also more abundant. In this context of rapid change, fishermen no longer really know how to adapt their practices so that their activities remain economically viable.
NMFS[9] officials are uncomfortable when this subject is raised. Indeed, their prerogative is to protect the marine biodiversity but also to maintain the activities related to this natural environment. In short, they try to find technical solutions. But the budgets are allocated in the same way as twenty years ago, with a focus on the management of fishing stocks. There is no funding for a large-scale ecosystem and economic analysis of the interactions between mammals, fish stocks and fishermen, nor for testing innovative solutions in terms of repulsion techniques. There is a gap between the political perception of the fisheries issue and the reality on the ground in which the rewilding of marine ecosystems now plays a central role. This diagnosis seems obvious when we hear fishermen mention that, among the problems they face in California, the primary concern is that of interactions with pinnipeds.
To make progress on this issue, NOAA organized a workshop on marine mammal deterrents (National Marine Mammal Deterrents Workshop, June 1-2, 2022). 107 people attended this workshop, including commercial fishermen, recreational fishermen, government agency officials, fishing equipment companies, and some scientists.
This meeting was an opportunity for fishermen to express their discouragement in the face of a problem that is beyond them. If some of them consider that the prey caught by pinnipeds is a form of tax paid to nature ("seals-sea lions tax"), they underline that a 5% harvest rate is acceptable but not a 30% levy ("5% is OK but not 30%!"). However, the fishermen all seem to agree that the "contribution" is closer to 30% than to 5%. 67% of those interviewed at the workshop indicated that more than half of their catch was damaged or lost due to marine mammals. 79% of this damage was caused by pinnipeds. Some people who speak on the subject mention depredation rates of 20%, others that one should be thankful when only 10% of the catch was taken. Obviously, the results of such a survey, in a context of tension on the subject, cannot be considered as a statistical estimate, but they show an extremely marked perception on the issue.
The fishermen were also able to explain that all the scaring tools used to keep the pinnipeds away were ineffective based on the knowledge they had accumulated over the past three decades. When new tools show some effectiveness, they become useless after a year or less. Pinnipeds always find ways around them.
The solutions adopted by fishermen today are based on a sum of disparate techniques that, when adopted simultaneously, partially solve the problem: using sonar to avoid mammals, adapting practices according to the season or time of day (more interactions with pinnipeds when there are fewer fish, at the beginning of the season), moving fishing gear farther apart to reduce risks, going farther out to sea, turning off lights at night. It was also noted that, if there is a risk of pinnipeds being caught, it would be better to move the fishing gear further out to sea, turn off the lights at night, use quieter fishing gear, communicate with other fishermen on the water to provide information on the location of the mammals, work on the tension of the nets to prevent pinnipeds from using them, use two fishing gears simultaneously to create a lure, etc. It was also noted that if there are many boats on the water, the cost of depredation is less because it is divided among all the fishermen. On the other hand, when there are very few on the water, it becomes almost impossible to fish. In any case, all this is very costly in time and money.
In order not to remain without a solution to the distress of the fishermen, the NOAA officials are looking for a win-win solution for them and the pinnipeds, hoping to find it on the side of technical innovations. They have therefore recently turned, as have port managers, to what the market has to offer in terms of scaring techniques. At the workshop on deterrents, NOAA wanted to give an important place to companies that propose technical solutions based on recent scientific knowledge. The one that was highlighted the most was the Targeted Acoustic Startle Technology (TAST) developed by the company GenusWave, created by biologists from the Marine Mammal Research Unit in Saint Andrews, Scotland. It incorporates the latest advances in knowledge of marine mammal-human interactions (Götz and Janik, 2013) and offers - if the testimonies of several speakers at the workshop are anything to go by - the win-win solution everyone has been waiting for. To summarize, "TAST induces reliable avoidance responses in target species - without causing harm. As an animal enters the TAST area, its startle reflex is activated, and the animal instinctively moves away from the installation"[10]. Numerous figures demonstrate the effectiveness of the tool tested in the United Kingdom: 74% more fish caught in fisheries equipped with this instrument, 97% fewer seals identified by sonar (Marine Mammal Organization, 2019).
In the relatively gloomy and heavy atmosphere of the workshop, this technical solution seems to be able to offer a way out to fishermen according to NOAA officials. However, the main concern of the professionals is to know how much it costs. The people from the company, who were present at the workshop and who listed all the advantages of TAST, were less eloquent when it came to talking about the price. They asked to be contacted after the workshop. The prices are not mentioned on the website either, where it is indicated that you have to make an appointment with the sales representative. We made a request, specifying that it was a scientific work, but we did not receive any feedback. In summary, it is possible to suspect that the price of such deterrent and its maintenance is high.
At the end of the workshop, the chairman asked to participants: « How do we leverage what we know about this issue? Who is interested in keeping this dialogue? » Long and heavy silence, no answer... It seems that fishermen are still waiting to be convinced. But they will not have to blame NOAA for not looking for the appropriate deterrent tool to keep pinnipeds away from fishing activities.
For interactions at sea, the only positive sign seems to come from tourist charters that are starting to offer "fishing and pinnipeds" packages. Thus, the sea lion attraction may be of interest to people who want to fish but have come with their families and may enjoy their children having fun watching marine mammals ("wildlife for afternoon and fishing in the morning").
Regulation in the Rivers
On the Columbia River watershed side, the problem of sea lion predation of salmonids is worsening in the late 2010s. In 2020, sea lions are estimated to consume 44% of the Columbia River king salmon population and 25% of the Willamette River steelhead (Oregon Fish and Wildlife Service, 2021).
In this context, information that the California sea lion population has likely reached its carrying capacity for the U.S. West Coast (Laake et al., 2018) and that the Steller sea lion population is experiencing a large increase - 43,000 individuals for the U.S. population (NOAA, 2019) - will play an important role. Indeed, the number of sea lions present in the Columbia River Basin is estimated at 420 (290 California sea lions and 130 Steller sea lions), which represents a very small percentage of the U.S. populations of these species (0.1% and 0.3%, respectively) (Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department, 2021). When compared to the economic losses suffered by stakeholders, this adds up to an ecological, social, and political cost per pinniped that seems far too great to NMFS officials. This information will thus create the conditions for the extension of taking authorizations already mentioned in Section 120(f) of the MMPA.
That's what's happening in 2018 with the amendment to Section 120(f) of the MMPA, which will temporarily provide more rights to euthanize sea lions (Temporary Marine Mammal Removal Authority). This amendment applies to pinnipeds that threaten populations of salmon, trout and eulachon (Thaleichthys pacificus), which are listed as endangered under the ESA, as well as lamprey and sturgeon populations that are not listed under the ESA but are declining in numbers[11]. These new authorizations cover the entire Columbia River Basin, from 112th miles to 292nd miles (McNary Dam) but also all waters used by native tribes in Washington and Oregon. The question is who will have the right to kill sea lions.
In 2019 NMFS is receiving applications for authorization from the following agencies: Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife; Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife; Idaho Department of Fish and Game; Nez Perce Tribe; Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation; Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon; Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation; Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community; Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians of Oregon.
In 2019, NMFS is forming a Pinniped-Fishery Interaction Task Force to rule on the eligibility of organizations to obtain authorization to euthanize sea lions. The experts include ecologists, conservation groups, fishermen's organizations, Indian tribal representatives, and state officials. The meetings of this working group are open to the public. However, common resource users are far more represented (10 of 22) than animal welfare representatives (2 of 22) on the task force.
In May 2020 the recommendations of the task force were published: all organizations that had requested it could obtain authorization to euthanize sea lions (with 17 votes for and 2 against). The members of the task force also specify that this removal can be done without having to prove that scaring measures have been adopted beforehand (as they are considered de facto ineffective) and this for category 1, 2 and 3 rivers where sea lions have been observed (i.e., the whole watershed). The extension and relaxation of the waiver is balanced by the setting of a maximum total number of individuals that may be euthanized over a 5-year period: 300 Steller sea lions and 540 California sea lions. Based on the latest census, this will likely kill all individuals present in a year (130 and 290 individuals in 2020). Organizations will need to demonstrate the effectiveness of these removals in restoring threatened fish populations to the location in question.
The actors who voted in favor of these authorizations were, not surprisingly, the representatives of the professional and recreational fisheries as well as the representatives of the Indian tribes (for a total of 10 votes out of 22) but also, more surprisingly, the ecologists and the representatives of public agencies. Jeff Laake (The Wildlife Society), NOAA and Fish and Wildlife Services officials, aquarium and zoo representatives, all voted in favor of this regulation by euthanasia. Of course, those invited to participate in this working group had many reasons - including ecological ones - to validate the entities' harvest requests. But it is instructive to note that even actors who are supposed to defend pinnipeds took up the cause of threatened fish populations. The only two actors who opposed the granting of these rights to euthanize were C.T. Harry (International Fund for Animal Welfare) and S. Young (The Humane Society), members of animal welfare associations.
[1] National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) : division of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) dedicated to the management of marine resources in the U.S. exclusive economic zone.
[2] California Coastal Commission (CCC) : A state agency within the California Natural Resources Agency, which exercises quasi-judicial control over land and public access along the state's 1,800 km of coastline. Its mission, as defined in the California Coastal Act, is to "protect, conserve, restore, and enhance the environment of the California coastline.
[3] Pinnipeds: group (clade) of semi-aquatic marine mammals with flipper-like legs, belonging to the order Carnivora. Large marine predators, the pinnipeds are composed of three families: Odobenidae (walrus), Otariidae (sea lions), Phocidae (seals).
[4]https://friendsofthembhd.org/help-us-rebuild-floating-dock/, accessed on August 31, 2022.
[5] Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) : A federal law passed in 1972 in the United States that prohibits the fishing, hunting, capture or harassment of any marine mammal and the import, export and sale of any marine mammal, or any part or product of a marine mammal, in that country.
[6] National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) : division of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) dedicated to the management of marine resources in the U.S. exclusive economic zone.
[7] California Coastal Commission (CCC) : A state agency within the California Natural Resources Agency, which exercises quasi-judicial control over land and public access along the state's 1,800 km of coastline. Its mission, as defined in the California Coastal Act, is to "protect, conserve, restore, and enhance the environment of the California coastline.
[8] California Coastal Commission (CCC) : A state agency within the California Natural Resources Agency, which exercises quasi-judicial control over land and public access along the state's 1,800 km of coastline. Its mission, as defined in the California Coastal Act, is to "protect, conserve, restore, and enhance the environment of the California coastline.
[9] National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) : division of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) dedicated to the management of marine resources in the U.S. exclusive economic zone.
[10]https://genuswave.com/resource_blog/marine-renewables/, accessed on August 29, 2022.
[11] Public Law 115–329, ‘‘Endangered Salmon Predation Prevention Act’’, « To allow for the taking of sea lions on the Columbia River and its tributaries to protect endangered and threatened species of salmon and other nonlisted fish species. » (U.S. Government, 2018).