Letter: Remove the Marine Mammal Protection Act

Once upon a time, when we had a country of the people, by the people and for the people, we had a thriving fishing industry, kept healthy by the bounty system of predator control. It had substantial bounties on seals, sea lions and killer whales.

In 1973, we completed the last of the Snake River dams and enacted the Marine Mammal Protection Act. It not only removed the bounties on these fish-eating predators, it placed them on the Endangered Species list.

Now the extreme environmentalists claim there are not enough fish to feed the killer whales and they say we should remove the Snake River dams to cure this situation.

Any pre-dam fish run data was taken before the Marine Mammal Protection Act was put in place.

It would be only logical to remove the MMPA and wait 50 years to see the results.

This story was originally published January 19, 2017 at 4:27 AM with the headline "Letter: Remove the Marine Mammal Protection Act."