Bill Asking DC For Marine Mammal Act Tweaks Passes Out Of WA Legislative Committee

A bipartisan bill in Olympia asking Congress and the Trump Administration for more leeway to manage sea lions and harbor seals in Washington sailed out of a legislative committee with an 11-0 do-pass recommendation today.

House Joint Memorial 4004 requests that the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act be modified “to allow greater flexibility for states and tribes to use adaptive management tools, including the use of lethal removal, for pinniped predators of endangered salmon stocks across all marine shorelines and the Puget Sound.”

Representative Greg Nance (D-Bainbridge Island), who recalled raising ESA-listed chum salmon as a sixth grader – “a life-altering experience” – indicated his eyes had been opened during a boat tour with the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe, on which learned about marine mammals enjoying a veritable “all-you-can-eat buffet” of young outmigrating salmonids at the Hood Canal Bridge.

“This legislature has moved forward and advanced important policies and investments for salmon recovery, but despite billion-dollar investments in habitat restoration, hatcheries, culvert upgrades and otherwise, there have been several unintended consequences due to out-of-control predation,” said Nance, who cosponsored the bill. “The Marine Mammal Protection Act has achieved many important objectives, but is also behind some of these unintended consequences.”

Today’s hearing on HJM 4004 attracted a lot of attention from the public, with 2,695 people signed in as pro and nearly twice as many as con.

Representative Ed Orcutt (R-Kalama), who said he’d seen three sea lions together in the Kalama River himself, spoke to some of the latter groups’ concerns.

“I want to reassure people that this is not taking pinnipeds out of the ecosystem,” said Orcutt, who also cosponsored the bill. “It is not trying to drive them to extinction … We’re not trying to eliminate them. We’re not trying to get them down to dangerous levels. We’re not even trying to get them out of the ocean. We are trying to do some work in the Columbia River, the tributaries of the Columbia River, the rivers that flow into Puget Sound and some that go directly into the ocean. That’s where we’re trying to get some controls. We do believe there needs to be some changes to the Marine Mammal Act so that we can do a little bit more management there.”

The bill follows on 2018’s amending of the MMPA by Congress, which President Trump signed into law and expanded the potential area of lethal removals of sea lions in the Columbia to include more areas used by ESA-listed salmon and steelhead. It was hardly open season.

The five-year permit granted to Northwest states and tribes by the National Marine Fisheries Service in 2020 allowed for the culling of a maximum of 540 Californias and 176 Stellers, fractions of fractions of populations estimated to be 257,000 and 75,000, respectively. Under that permit, which expires this August, a total of 199 sea lions have actually been reported removed, with all of those coming from Bonneville Dam and Willamette Falls despite more removal latitude.

“I think that it’s important that we listen when tribes say that this is a problem,” added Representative Adam Bernbaum (D-Port Angeles). “I know that there are tribes in my district that have reached out both to express support for this memorial as well as to talk about tweaking a little bit of the language.”

Among those from the public arguing against the bill was Marie Wilson. “Instead, I advocate we keep focus upstream and on salmon generation. Remove human-caused barriers blocking or impeding salmon runs. Restore wetlands and instream habitats to combat the warming waters. Please do not pass HJM 4004 and trade a life for a life when human-caused obstacles impeding salmon numbers persist to exist,” she said.

Voting aye to give HJM 4004 a do-pass recommendation were Representatives Kristine Reeves (D-Federal Way), Melanie Morgan (D-Spanaway), Tom Dent (R-Moses Lake), Andrew Engell (R-Colville), Bernbaum, Stephanie McClintock (R-Vancouver), Nance, Orcutt, Adison Richards (D-Gig Harbor), Joe Schmick (R-Colfax) and Larry Springer (D-Kirkland).

The bill now moves on in the legislature.