Marine Mammal Management

Problem: Excessive seal populations have detrimentally affected salmon population stocks in the Pacific Ocean. ONE SEA LION CAN EAT AS MUCH AS TWO 20 POUND SALMON PER DAY. 5000 SEA LIONS A TWO SALMON A DAY AT 365 DAYS PER YEAR EQUALS 3,650,000 SALMON PER YEAR. Fish hatcheries have artificially put extra food into the ocan for seals and sea lions to eat thus artificially inflating seal and sea lion population detrimentally affecting the ecosystem.

Purpose of petition: To cause to be by the will of the people to direct the Federal Government to enact legislation that would curtail seal populations using birth control so that such seal populations would be reduced by the amount they were artificially inflated by the input of fish by fish hatcheries.

Petition: The Federal government will, by the will of the people, sponsor a program by a joint committee of marine biology specialists from the most prominent marine biology university programs from each of California, Oregon, and Washington to determine the feasibility of using birth control to manage the marine mammal populations of seals and sea lions. This study will be conducted by using proven and reliable and non-biased scientific methods of inquiry to determine the best outcomes for seal and sea lion management. Should it be scientifically and reliably proven that seal populations have been artificially inflated by the advent of fish hatcheries, then action will be immediately taken by the Federal Government to use birth control darts or other proven methods of birth control to reduce the seal and sea lion population by the amount that it was artificially inflated by having more food available in the form of hatchery salmon. Additional action should be taken by the Federal Government should it be proven that sea lion and seal populations violate the endangered species act by targeting groups of endangered salmon stocks in the Klamath and Sacremento Rivers in California. This action would include immediate culling of seals in a control zone around the estuaries of each of these river systems in waters less than 100 feet deep and to a radius of 1 and one half miles around the mouth of each of these rivers extending along the shorline and outward in a