Catching up with Rob

Catching up with Rob

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Caught up with fisherman Rob Maxey. Last time I talked to him, he was fending off aggressive sea lions who took fish off his hooks or jumped into his boat. Anyway, a year has passed. Let's see what's up. What's the latest? Last time we talked, you were being assaulted by sea lions. Speaker2: Yeah. You know, the seal and sea lion problem has just been ongoing here in the Pacific Northwest for 20 years. We let them pretty much have their way. They could jump on docks. You can't chew them off pulling fish out of the net. It was getting pretty ugly. But honestly, the last couple of years, Fish and Game jumped through so many hoops, they finally got the ability to, I think they call it lethal to deal with them. So they trapped and shot a half a dozen sea lions at the Falls at Bonneville. And the problem stopped the Willamette Falls. They did the same thing and the problem was kind of stuff. What they found is there is a few big offenders and as soon as they got rid of those, the rest of them left. So now a lot of the pinch points where they were wiping out the salmon and they're pretty well gone. They're down in the lower river and out in the ocean where they should be. We still got some issues in places where we keep feeding them. As long as you've got a tourist thing that says, look at the pretty sea lions, they jump up on your dock. I guess if you're a tourist that wants to look at them once a year, that's great. But if you live here, they become real pests. So one man's enjoyment is the other man's bane, I guess. Speaker1: Yes. Robert, about perspective.
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