Oregon L.O.W.F.I

The ODFW (Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife) trapping and killing of several sea lions at Oregon’s Bonneville Dam has brought attention to their practices from the Sea Lion Defense Brigade.

There’s the issue itself of course: killing sea lions in order to protect salmon. Fish ladders are installed at dams to help salmon swim upstream so they can spawn. Sea lions hang out around the fish ladders in order to eat the salmon. Humans trap, relocate or kill the sea lions, in order to protect the salmon — which is an endangered species — and allow them to spawn. So we can eat them.

This cycle of eating, monitoring, capturing, killing, removing, monitoring, eating. . . costs a lot of money, provides jobs, provides food, continues traditions, promotes and supports industry, protects authority and infrastructures. The language used within this spiral is interesting in a Fortean-esoteric context.

Words like murder, killing, slaughter are rarely used. Instead phrases like “lethal removal” and “euthanasia” are used. Ignoring the fact that we are also predators, the word “predator” is used to describe the sea lion: “sea lion predation” which is “out of control.” (Yet according to the Sea Lion Defense Brigade website, sea lions have long co-existed with salmon and other fish in that area and the problem of overfishing was recognized as far back as the late 1800s.)

Do fish ladders help the salmon? If they get through safely, whether it’s from the predation of sea lions or not, it seems so. But according to the SLDB fish ladders kill many salmon:

dams harm salmon by closing off habitat, by killing fish in the turbines, and by creating warm, still bodies of water where, once, the river was swift, shallow, and cold. The salmon evolved over millennia to live in cold, shallow, fast-moving water. Warmer temperatures behind the dams kill the salmon. Those fish who are able to survive these conditions are faced with over-fishing, both in the river and out in the ocean.

On the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife website, you can view “images of sea lion trapping.” One wonders why anyone would want to see that; this reminds me of the way we use animal imagery in our food ads to promote the eating and killing of animals. The very animal we eat is the animal image used to entice us to partake of a particular company’s meat/fish product. The animals killed to be enjoyed by us, as well as provide jobs and stimulate the economy, are glad to be sacrificed for our needs. Instead of honoring them we characterize them, reduce them to goofy, sometimes crazy creatures (Pollo Loco) or anthropomorphize them, which brings up some disturbing and interesting ideas about cannibalism.

Also on the ODFW site, there is reference to the “euthanasia” of sea lions that cannot be moved, or sent to zoos and aquariums:

Animals that are trapped and cannot be placed will be euthanized on site under the supervision of an ODFW veterinarian and an interagency Animal Care Committee.

The definition of euthanasia is one of humanely killing something that is ill. The etymology of the word comes from the Greek euthanatos “easy death.” The Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary defines euthanasia as:

The act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals (as persons or domestic animals) in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy.

Of course the word is used to define killing in a number of ways in order to soften its effects; for example, animals in shelters are usually not sick in any way, they are killed due to lack of room, yet the word “euthanized” is used instead of killed, murdered, put down, or put to sleep.

The officialdom of dignitaries from agencies, including the Animal Care Committee, gives the ritual of animal sacrifice an approval from authority. Soft, compassionate sounding titles, like Animal Care Committee, creates an aura of holiness about the killing.

The ODFW site concludes by telling us permission was granted to the ODFW to remove sea lions from the dam:

On March 18, 2008, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gave Oregon and Washington Departments of Fish and Wildlife and Idaho Fish and Game federal authority to remove – through lethal or non-lethal means – California sea lions preying on salmon and steelhead listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Note the language used: “authority to remove” “lethal or non-lethal means,” “sea lions preying on salmon” “steelhead listed for protection.” The hidden message is one of authority watching over all of us, including the attacked salmon by “predatory” sea lions. Authority — agencies such as the ODFW, the Bonneville Dam, the state — have come together to aid endangered salmon and rid their habitats of “predators.”

image source: UK Rivers Network

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