Killing Seabirds to Save Salmon?

In an effort to save imperiled salmon in the Columbia River, the US government plans to kill nearly 11,000 double-crested cormorants whose hungry appetite has spelled bad news for these fish, the US Army Corps of Engineers announced Friday.

Officials are faced with a sort of catch-22 situation, in which if they choose to save either the seabirds or salmon (and steelhead trout), the other species will suffer as a result. This way, officials say, they can try to protect both.

"This is a difficult situation," Diana Fredlund, a spokesman for the US Army Corps, told Reuters. "We are trying to balance the salmon and steelhead vs. the birds. It's very difficult to find the right answer and so it's taken us a long time. We've had a lot of experts working on it."

The new plan, which is in the form of a final Environmental Impact Statement, is currently under review. If it's approved, over the next four years state agriculture workers would be shooting the birds as well as spraying their eggs with vegetable oil to prevent the young birds from hatching.

Some might ask if killing this many birds is really necessary, no doubt inciting anger in conservationists everywhere. However, the Corps insists that other considered alternatives just wouldn't solve the problem. For example, they had suggested hazing the birds to get them off the island, but Fredlund said that would just shift the problem elsewhere.

"We don't want to just shoot them off the island and let them be somebody else's problem. This is a regional problem," she explained.

According to federal officials, the seabirds are eating too many juvenile salmon and steelhead, many of which are already listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. This is putting fish populations at risk, prompting the NOAA to call for a decrease in double-crested cormorants from about 13,000 breeding pairs now to just under 6,000 or fewer by 2018.

While it seems most are blaming the birds for the drop in fish numbers, others like the Audubon Society of Portland argue that the real threat to the salmon population is habitat loss, fish hatcheries, and dams.

"We feel the birds are being scapegoated while the primary causes of salmon decline are not being adequately addressed," sad Bob Sallinger, the local Audubon Society's conservation director.

Sallinger said the society plans to fight the Corps' decision, which could be finalized as early as mid-March, and is even prepared to go to court to try to stop the plan's approval.

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