Guest Column: Amending MMPA will protect salmon

After sounding the alarm for decades about the need to manage outsized populations of pinnipeds, the treaty tribes are encouraged by bipartisan efforts to amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), and are grateful for the collaboration with co-sponsors Reps. Baumgartner (R-WA05) and Randall (D-WA06) to support salmon recovery. Tribes have been working with lawmakers to allow the lethal removal of pinnipeds to protect salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and other threatened species in Washington and the Columbia River watershed. The pinnipeds of concern are harbor seals and California and Steller sea lions, predators that have driven Pacific Northwest salmon to functional extinction. The harbor seal population is at carrying capacity — the maximum size the environment can support without degrading resources — and both of the invasive sea lion populations continue to increase.

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