112 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



and other varieties of salmon that hover off the Washington and Oregon coast. The 

 last Oregon legislature passed a bill offering a bounty of $2.50 for each sea lion killed 

 in the waters of the State or within one marine league of the Oregon shore. Faulty 

 wording of the bill renders the money set aside for the purpose unavailable, and the 

 Fishermen's Protective Union has raised a fund by private subscription to hire men 

 to shoot the lions at their breeding-grounds. 



How many salmon each of these monsters kills each day is purely a matter of 

 conjecture, but instances are known where a single sea lion has killed and eaten 18 

 salmon within a very few minutes, and it is certain that many hundreds of thousands 

 of royal chinook salmon are killed every year by these pests. When fishing, the 

 lions usually travel in groups of from six to eight, and they will follow a school of 

 fish for days. They feast on the fish until they become quite dainty, and will take 

 but one bite from the choicest part of the salmon, leaving the remainder of the fish 

 to float ashore or to be devoured by the scavengers of the seas. The lions vary in 

 size, but when fully grown average about 8 or 10 feet in length, although specimens 

 have been seen fully 18 feet long and which would weigh 4,000 pounds. 



It is during the summer months that the lions do the greatest amount of damage. 

 They are numerous at many places along the Pacific coast, but their favorite 

 rendezvous appears to be in the neighborhood of the mouth of the Columbia River. 

 Thousands of them congregate at Seal Rock light-house during the breeding season. 

 These rocks are situated well out from the beach and can be reached only during the 

 extreme low tides of the summer months, thus rendering the retreat of the lions com- 

 paratively safe from attack except during isolated periods. After leaving the rocks 

 at the close of the breeding season the lions are even more voracious than usual, and 

 the schools of flsh in that region of the ocean have short shrift. Numbers of the 

 lions gather off the mouth of the Columbia River, and the sands of the jetty are black 

 with them during the warm hours of the day. The huge mammals appear to be 

 warned by instinct of the approach of a school of salmon, which is always the signal 

 for a hurried putting to sea, and before the return thousands of the choicest flsh in 

 the world have been devoured or so badly mutilated that they will die. 



Commercially the sea lions are of little value, and not enough can be realized from 

 their sale to make the killing of them profltable. This, coupled with the extreme 

 difficulty of securing the carcasses of the animals, as the lions take to the water as 

 soon as they are shot, makes the hunting of them a precarious means of livelihood 

 and renders it absolutely necessary that a bounty be paid if the lions are to be exter- 

 minated. The hides, which weigh when green about 70 pounds, sell for half a cent 

 a pound. The whiskers of the male sell for from 10 cents to 13 cents for the largest, 

 which are from 10 to 12 inches in length. Those of the female are fewer in number 

 and less valuable, but longer, some reaching 18 inches in length. 



A vast amount of valuable fishing gear is destroyed each year by the lions. A big 

 male lion, while in pursuit of a salmon, will become entangled in a gill net or trap, 

 and before it can possibly be released will, by its desperate lashings and biting, tear 

 the web into shreds. The amount of damage done each season would be difficult to 

 estimate, but it is certainly enormous, and their extermination at the least would be 

 of untold benefit to the fishing industry of the coast. 



In California the State board of fish commissioners espoused the cause 

 of the fishermen and strongly advocated a reduction of the size of the 

 sea-lion herds on the California coast. As the sea lions can be killed 

 most expeditiously when resorting- to rookeries for breeding purposes, 

 and as the rookeries are mostly on islands which are (Tovernmcnt 

 reservations under control of the Light-House Board, the California 

 commivssioners sought pormission for their agents to visit these rook- 

 eries and thin out the herds. The granting" of this re(iucst w^as opposed 



