Update: The traps are set and the unwanted stellar sea lions come and go. No California sea lions, those greedy salmon gobbling enemies of fishermen, have appeared at the base of the Bonneville dam. It is almost as if they know if they are captured their life is over. Officials publicly admitted captured sea lions will be euthanized. The Stumptown newspaper in its irritating know it all editorial voice, supports the killings in this way: "We know that sea lions are not to blame for the demise of Columbia salmon. The fish runs collapsed because of dams, overfishing and habitat destruction." Their idea of logic is to kill the seal lions to fix the problem because making dams easier to get over or removing the unneeded ones is too expensive. The editorial board is even unwilling to reduce the sport fisherman's catch limits because "Sport fishing provides hundreds of millions of dollars in annual economic benefit." Buffalo hunting was lucrative in its day too.After a temporary setback in court the states of Oregon and Washington are gearing up to capture or kill (mostly kill) up to 85 California sea lions (zalophus californianus) congregating at the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. The sea lions have figured out that spawning salmon congregating below the dam are easy catches. On Thursday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to grant an injunction against the NOAA Fisheries Service permit allowing the "taking" of protect mammals that do not respond to hazing and cannot be relocated. There are few available spaces for adult male sea lions in parks and zoos. So thirty intelligent creatures simply trying to survive face the death sentence. Man is just too lazy, or too greedy, to keep most of the pinnipeds out of the area without using lethal means. Neither does it require skill to kill a sea lion with a shotgun at close range. The fact is that the sea lions eat less than 4% of the salmon run while "sportsmen" take 13% according to the Army Corps of Engineers. Officials attempt to explain the unfairness involved by claiming sea lions do not discriminate between hatchery or wild fish. I doubt a fisherman feeling inadequate compared to a sea lion in the water does either, nor does the man-made monolith of concrete and steel standing in the path of the salmon's return home. Homo sapiens is having difficulties in the post-modern age, and will have more to come, because his entire approach to living on a living planet inhabited by other sentient beings is egotistical. The verdict of natural selection is rather severe.