Sea Lions

A federal agency recommended killing about 30 sea lions a year at a Columbia River dam where the marine animals feast on salmon migrating upriver to spawn. By many estimates, the sea lions devour about 4% of spring runs. Fishermen and Columbia River tribes have urged action for years against the sea lions at Bonneville Dam. Sea lions are attracted to the dam east of Portland because of the large number of fish that gather there to pass through the fish ladders.

French researchers reported this week that they had trained six baboons to read - or at least to scan a string of four letters and determine when they form a word and when they don't.  The experiment, which was reported Thursday in the journal Science, cements baboons' place among an ever-growing menagerie of clever animals . In December, the Los Angeles Times reported about pigeons who could count - birds who could see pictures of...

Even when you're surrounded by thousands of beautiful, exotic fish all day, there's still nothing quite like that mammal-to-mammal feeling. And no warmblooded vertebrates with hair know that feeling better than Jenny Theodorou and Debbie Prevratil. The pair are mammalogists at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, which opens Saturday. Ticket-buying land mammals can witness a heartwarming encounter between the handlers and their plucky sea mammals at least twice a day. Lugging buckets of herring and Icelandic capelins, the mammalogists will trot out in their calf-high black rubber boots and hand-feed the aquarium's seven California sea lions and harbor seals.

For all their sharp teeth, many meat-eating mammals lack a sweet tooth, a genetic analysis of a dozen species has shown. The study, published this month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that carnivorous mammals whose diets don't feature much in the way of sugar may lose the ability to taste it at all. Study coauthor Gary Beauchamp, director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, wasn't sure...

In March, a couple of plump, 900-pound California sea lions showed up at the Bonneville Dam, which spans the Columbia River between Washington and Oregon, 146 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. Their mission: to gorge themselves on a feast of endangered chinook salmon laboring to get over the dam's fish ladder. The two had been caught before and branded as recidivist malefactors by wildlife officials, who have spent decades and billions of dollars trying to protect the salmon.

The sea lion was lying on a rock near the shore at Crissy Field, looking exhausted. A green fishing lure stuck out of its bottom lip, and a row of ribs showed when it breathed. It didn't put up a fight when two volunteers from the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito approached it from behind and threw a net over its head. The volunteers nudged the sea lion into a dog kennel, carried it off the rocks and took it to Sausalito for treatment.

Re "Battle With Sea Lions Turns Deadly," June 17: Jim Lecky, chief of the protected species division of National Marine Fisheries Service Southwest division, is quoted as saying sea lions "steal a lot of fish from fishermen." Au contraire! It is the fishermen who steal a lot of fish from the sea lions! After all, the sea is their domain. If the fishermen and their customers don't like it, let 'em eat cake! ZACHARY S. CHARLES Burbank If the fishing industry would stop killing off all the predators of the sea, e.g., sharks, they wouldn't have such a problem with the sea lion population explosion.

Federal authorities have proposed shutting down fishing for cod and mackerel across more than 131,000 square miles in the western Aleutian Islands of Alaska in an effort to halt continuing declines in Steller sea lions. The measure is part of a package of restrictions proposed Monday for a total of more than 350,000 square miles of the West Coast's most productive fishing grounds that could affect fisheries worth $30 million a year. A biological opinion released by the National Marine Fisheries Service suggests that clamping down on harvests of fish that are important parts of the sea lions' diet may be the only way to halt the decline of the animals, whose numbers have shrunk by 83% since the 1970s.

The sea lions are coming back. And if you have to ask which sea lions and where they're coming back to, then you're obviously not a typical old L.A.

Six protected sea lions found dead in government traps this month died of overheating, not gunshots, as had been initially suspected, the National Marine Fisheries Service said in Portland. Investigators had suspected foul play after finding sea lions covered in blood and puncture wounds inside a trap at a dam between Washington and Oregon. But a review found that the deaths were consistent with heat exhaustion.

Spend enough time on a boat in Southern California and you'll see your fill of sea lions, dolphins and even the occasional whale. But a group of whale watchers this week were treated to a less common sight, crossing paths with a sea otter off the coast of Laguna Beach. The Dana Pride was on a whale-watching excursion Monday afternoon when the crew spotted one of the furry marine mammals lingering just outside some kelp a quarter-mile offshore. "His head came up and they said, 'Wow, that's a sea otter' and it just came up and watched our boat," said Donna Kalez, general manager of Dana Wharf Sportfishing.

The Peninsula Valdes nature reserve is a remote mix of mud flats, cliffs and stony beaches so rich in wildlife that UNESCO named it a World Heritage Site in 1999. In these waters off the east coast of Argentina, southern right whales thrive and orcas snack on sea lions and baby elephant seals.  Travel outfitter Adventure Life organizes five-day sea kayaking and camping trips that take travelers to see penguins, sea lions, elephant seals and, of course, whales -- up close. The trip starts and ends in Trelew, Argentina, and spends two nights camping at El 39, a beach where southern right whales are studied.

A federal appeals court Tuesday halted the killing of sea lions that had been feeding on endangered salmon along the Columbia River, pointing out contradictions in the government's conservation policy that targets the natural predators while allowing fishermen to take many more of the scarce fish. At least two dozen of the flippered predators have been captured and euthanized by the National Marine Fisheries Service since the federal government in 2008 authorized the agency to kill protected sea lions in Washington, Oregon and Idaho to prevent them from feeding on salmon and steelhead headed upstream to spawn.

Federal authorities have proposed shutting down fishing for cod and mackerel across more than 131,000 square miles in the western Aleutian Islands of Alaska in an effort to halt continuing declines in Steller sea lions. The measure is part of a package of restrictions proposed Monday for a total of more than 350,000 square miles of the West Coast's most productive fishing grounds that could affect fisheries worth $30 million a year. A biological opinion released by the National Marine Fisheries Service suggests that clamping down on harvests of fish that are important parts of the sea lions' diet may be the only way to halt the decline of the animals, whose numbers have shrunk by 83% since the 1970s.

If Paris is out of reach, you can catch the vibe closer to home. The De Young Museum in San Francisco opens the first of two shows this month featuring masterpieces from the famed Musée d'Orsay. The first show, "Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces From the Musée d'Orsay," presents 100 works by such masters as Édouard Manet and Claude Monet. The show, which was to open Saturday, runs through Sept. 6. Tickets are $25 for adults, $15 for children 6 to 17; free for children 5 and younger.

On a drizzly afternoon, a group of tourists huddle aboard the Christopher sipping wine, nibbling cookies and gazing out at the ocean just off of Long Beach. Cameras dangle from their necks, ready to record the sights. But these sightseers are not aboard for an afternoon of whale watching or a search for dolphins and sea lions. Corroded metal shipping containers, belching smokestacks, trash-strewn waterways and oil islands highlight this harbor cruise. The 2 1/2 -hour excursion takes passengers through a seascape short on the picturesque but full of concrete and metal -- a ride through exhaust-tinged air and past power plants, rusty warehouses and the Terminal Island prison that once housed Charles Manson and Al Capone.

Ecuador is investigating the clubbing deaths of more than 50 Galapagos Islands sea lions found this month with cracked skulls, a state prosecutor said. The killings had to have been committed by humans, said prosecutor Jaime Estevez, who called them the work "of some people who enjoy watching these animals suffer."

Dozens of starving sea lion pups have washed ashore in Orange County, the latest calamity to befall marine life and a pattern scientists believe could be tied to El Niño climate conditions. Since January, the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach has rescued 27 emaciated sea lion pups that have been stranded on area beaches -- a three- to fourfold increase from the norm, said Dr. Richard Evans, the center's medical director. The pups, most under 6 months old, have gone without food for so long they've started digesting their blubber and muscle to keep themselves warm in the chilly Pacific waters, biologists say. Their eyes bulge and their skin hangs loosely over protruding spines, hipbones and ribs.

Dozens of starving sea lion pups have washed ashore in Orange County, the latest calamity to befall marine life and a pattern scientists believe could be tied to El Niño climate conditions. Since January, the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach has rescued 27 emaciated sea lion pups that have been stranded on area beaches -- a three- to fourfold increase from the norm, said Dr. Richard Evans, the center's medical director. The pups, most under 6 months old, have gone without food for so long they've started digesting their blubber and muscle to keep themselves warm in the chilly Pacific waters, biologists say. Their eyes bulge and their skin hangs loosely over protruding spines, hipbones and ribs.

Even among those who seek to protect wildlife above all, there are moments of great conflict. One of those moments is playing out near Portland, Ore., as sea lions gorge on endangered chinook salmon that gather at the base of the Bonneville Dam, preparing to make their way up the fish ladders to spawn. Last week and this, wildlife officials have killed six of the most incorrigible of the animals, which have refused to be dissuaded by noise, rubber bullets or other harassing techniques.