Twenty years of science including the Endangered Species Act indicates over fishing has tipped the scales towards steelhead extinction. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife figures show that over 5,588 steelheads were harvested in the Collowash and Sherar Deschutes areas and a state-wide total of approximately 42,280 steelheads were harvested.

At the same time, human pollution and negligence regarding climate change have reduced sea lions' primary food; anchovies, sardines, and mackerel, leaving the sea lion population of young dying by the thousands from starvation.

Jean-Michel Cousteau informed President Obama, "Hundreds of federal, state, tribal and independent scientists have concluded that removing the four lower Snake River dams is the best and perhaps only means to protect these fish from extinction and recover healthy populations."

No matter what the conditions, and despite a global effort of millions of dollars and thousands of scientists, it is our species, humans, who are driving both the steelhead and the sea lion towards extinction in all the world's great rivers: Columbia, Loire, Scaramento, Connecticut, the Rhine and more. The issues of the Sea Lion and the steelhead, are a consequence of human resource demands.

Leave the sea lions alone, reduce stream damage by curtailing logging in critical steelhead areas, remove the dams, and save the steelhead by aggressive farming and zero fishing. Killing sea lions will not accomplish the task of protecting the steelhead because neither has science or money. If the steelhead can survive the human, it will be several generations before we can again have our fish and eat it too.

Allyson Jayne Miller, Corvallis