House subcommittee hears tribal, NOAA and industry calls to expand tools to address sea lion predation on salmon

The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries held an oversight hearing examining pinniped (sea lion and seal) predation on threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead in the Pacific Northwest.

Chairwoman Hageman opened the session by framing the core tension: protections under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) have coincided with a recovery of pinniped populations that, witnesses said, now exert heavy predation pressure on multiple ESA‑listed salmon runs. The committee heard from Samuel Rauch, deputy assistant administrator for regulatory programs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries; tribal leaders who say predation threatens treaty fishing rights; and industry representatives who called for statutory updates plus dedicated funding and monitoring.

NOAA’s Samuel Rauch told the panel that NOAA recognizes pinniped predation is “having a significant negative impact” on the recovery of ESA‑listed salmonids in certain parts of the region. Rauch said California sea lion abundance grew from roughly 10,000 in the 1950s to about 250,000–275,000 today and that Steller sea lion numbers are also robust. He reported that NOAA has issued a small number of targeted authorizations under sections 120 and 120(f) of the MMPA—12 authorizations since 1995 and a few hundred…