Steller sea lions gobbling up sturgeon below Bonneville Dam

Last month, government agencies gathered the media at Bonneville Dam to discuss the problem of sea lions eating endangered salmon. As if on cue, a sea lion surfaced below the dam, feasting on a fish as birds circled overheard. Cameras clicked, videotape rolled. But most missed that the sea lion wasn't eating a salmon. It was eating a sturgeon. Amid debate over the government's response to salmon-eating sea lions, which includes killing the mammals with gunshots or injections, a parallel but very different predator-prey phenomenon has evolved. Sea lions have gone from practically ignoring sturgeon at the dam to eating them by the hundreds, which could eventually threaten the fish and force wildlife experts to make some difficult choices. And though California sea lions eat most of the salmon at Bonneville, it's their larger cousins, Stellers, that eat nearly 98 percent of the sturgeon below the dam, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. Compounding the problem is that Stellers, unlike California sea lions, are protected under the Endangered Species Act, limiting what wildlife agencies can do to keep them from sturgeon that spawn below the dam...The Oregonian