5/13 am close encounters of the furry kind

[Sarcastic Fringehead]

Originally Posted by Ed

I have been fishing offshore San Diego for over forty years and have seen some dead sea dogs, but never one I could tell was shot. Lots of things can kill a sea lion, including old age, disease and starvation. What is your definition of plenty?. Come on, sounds like a huge exaggeration. Is it just where I'm fishing, or do all you guys see shot dogs regularly?. Yeah, right. The feds made slingshots legal for a reason, and they are the ones in charge of protecting the beasts. As for being afraid of pissing one off with my slingshot, the next one that gets too close to my yak gets a new beauty mark. If it pisses him off, he gets another beauty mark. There's a pattern there.

It's actually not an exaggeration. But since you clearly think I have no idea what I'm talking about, why don't you ask a colleague of mine, Jim Carretta (who's been conducting pinniped and cetacean population studies for NMFS out of the La Jolla office) how many sea lions they come across on a yearly basis in S. Cal. that are dead as the result of gunshot wounds. Then after you get that number, and it's a big one, keep in mind it represents only a small fraction of the actual total, since the ones that are logged are only those that were floating and were observed. But that's a different debate. Use a slingshot if you feel inclined.