Target: Martha Williams, Director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service
Goal: Stop senselessly killing sea lions.
In a misguided attempt to save salmon and steelhead trout from extinction, the U.S. has approved a new regulation allowing the slaughter of over 700 sea lions in the Columbia River basin—including the states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. While the use of firearms will be prohibited, other brutal tools—including poles, gaffs, and squeeze traps—will be needed to isolate, restrain, and kill the sea lions.
While this regulation was passed in the name of “conserving” salmon and trout, in reality, sea lions actually have very little to do with the dwindling salmon populations. Sea lions, unlike humans, rely on these and other fish to survive and act as natural population regulators, ensuring fish populations don’t grow out of hand. The root of these species’ endangerments is actually human activity—human caused pollution, habitat loss, overfishing, and climate change.
Sign this petition to demand the U.S. stop this useless program and instead, change our own behaviors to help conserve salmon and trout populations.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Director Williams,
Recent plans to save salmon and steelhead trout from extinction are misguided and, quite frankly, totally useless. In encouraging the mass slaughter of sea lions, we are failing to tackle the real problem threatening these endangered fish. While sea lions do, in fact, rely on consuming salmon and trout to survive, this consumption is an entirely natural process which seeks to regulate fish populations so that they don’t get out of control. Human consumption of these fish, however, is another thing altogether. Each year, humans kill an estimated 2 trillion fish for food—not counting the billions of fish that die as a result of human-caused pollution, climate change, and habitat loss.
The overexploitation of salmon and trout is our fault entirely, and slaughtering innocent sea lions is not the solution to our problems. We are asking you, Ms. Williams, to stop the cruel, unnecessary killing of sea lions and, instead, conserve salmon by adapting our own habits.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: KenWalker
The nerve — the audacity — to blame the SEA LIONS for the evils of Humans — it’s obvious to even a novice that Sea Lions are NOT to blame and it’s the Humans who are overfishing and obliterating our waters of foods that are meant for other Ocean Animals — STOP the plan to SLAUGHTER our Sea Lions — you’re making a HUGE mistake