ASA Testifies Before Congress on Marine Mammal Predation in the Pacific Northwest

Alexandria, VA – December 3, 2025 – Earlier at present, ASA’s Pacific Fisheries Coverage Director, Larry Phillips, testified earlier than the Home Pure Assets Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries. Mr. Phillips emphasised the leisure fishing trade’s issues with the detrimental impacts sea lions are having on salmon and steelhead populations within the Pacific Northwest.

“For many years, federal, state, and tribal companions – in addition to anglers – have invested closely in salmon restoration by means of habitat restoration, hatchery modernization, harvest reform, and hydropower mitigation,” mentioned Phillips. “One main issue continues to erode these features: pinniped predation on salmon and steelhead.”

Sea lions goal dams the place they’ll simply feed on returning salmon, inflicting a decline in spawning success and survivability.

Within the Columbia River, sea lions that have been practically absent within the Nineteen Nineties now quantity within the tens of 1000’s and may devour a good portion – estimated as excessive as ~40 % – of the spring Chinook run in a single season. In Puget sound, harbor seals devour as much as 14 % of juvenile Chinook yearly and as a lot as one-third of steelhead smolts.

Whereas sea lion predation of salmonids within the area is just not new, the migration of those massive predators to upriver websites comparable to Bonneville Dam is, and research have proven that using dams for predation is a realized habits amongst sea lion populations.

Though some administration instruments exist, comparable to relocation and deadly removing of individually identifiable “nuisance” pinnipeds, the Marine Mammal Safety Act nonetheless prevents significant motion in lots of areas the place predation is most acute. To assist the restoration of Pacific Northwest salmon and steelhead, ASA recommends that Congress:

Create a streamlined pathway for managing predatory pinnipeds in Puget Sound and alongside the Washington and Oregon coasts by increasing the location-based strategy.

Lengthen administration authority to predation sizzling spots together with Puget Sound, each coasts, and Columbia River tributaries such because the Cowlitz and Lewis Rivers.

Present devoted federal funding to assist monitoring, removals, and ongoing scientific evaluation.

Lengthen MMPA administration authority to Washington’s treaty tribes and work collaboratively with Oregon’s tribal governments.

Make significant investments in habitat, hatcheries, hydropower mitigation, and harvest reforms.

“Science exhibits these populations have rebounded dramatically within the trendy period and lots of shares are at or above their optimum sustainable inhabitants ranges,” added Phillips.

ASA is grateful to Chair Hageman (R-WY), Rating Member Hoyle (D-OR) and members of the Subcommittee for his or her concentrate on this difficulty and we look ahead to working with Congress, federal companies, state and tribal companions, and the sportfishing trade to enact options to this ongoing menace.

Click on right here to observe a recording of at present’s listening to.

The American Sportfishing Affiliation (ASA) is the sportfishing trade’s commerce affiliation dedicated to representing the pursuits of the sportfishing and boating industries in addition to all the sportfishing neighborhood. We give the trade and anglers a unified voice when rising legal guidelines and insurance policies might considerably have an effect on sportfishing enterprise or sportfishing itself. ASA invests in long-term ventures to make sure the trade will stay sturdy and affluent, in addition to safeguard and promote the enduring financial, conservation and social values of sportfishing in America. ASA additionally offers America’s 57.7 million anglers a voice in coverage selections that have an effect on their skill to sustainably fish on our nation’s waterways by means of Hold America Fishing, our nationwide angler advocacy marketing campaign. America’s anglers generate greater than $50 billion in retail gross sales with a $230.5 billion impression on the nation’s economic system creating employment for 1.1 million individuals.