Maybe sea lions should pay for parks

Spring-cleaning time.

We won't even pretend to have surveyed all the mail that's piled up this spring while we gallivanted in several places. But a couple of spirited questions call for a long-overdue dusting off of the ol' Big Gore-Tex Northwest Mailbag.

Straight from the top:

Q: This sea-lion thing is getting out of hand. I mean, they're amusing and all, and I didn't think the ones cruising for dinner at the Ballard Locks should be killed when that argument was hashed out. But now I read that hundreds of the buggers are swimming 140 miles up the Columbia River, eating up to 10 percent of endangered chinook — meaning we can't fish for them in the ocean or eat them at Anthony's.

If it comes down to them or my barbecue, I'm siding with the Weber. Isn't it time to start using lethal methods to control this pest?

A: We could say "absolutely," and then stand back and wait for the cannon-blast of angry calls, letters and e-mails. Instead, in the fine tradition of White House Propaganda Minister Scott McClellan, allow us to issue forth the following steamin' heap of doublespeak:

This is one of those complicated, do-we-kill-one-animal-to-save-another ethical dilemmas that wildlife managers face all the time. There's no right answer, let alone a popular one.

But we will say this: Columbia River spring chinook are listed as endangered because they are. Sea lions are not. Simple math applies here to some degree.

Still, we wouldn't advocate a two-sea-lion bag limit on the Columbia until all nonlethal options have been explored. And that's apparently what's happening.

Wildlife managers in both Washington and Oregon are seeking permission from the feds to up the harassment of the pesky beasts at places like the fish ladders at Bonneville Dam, where sea lions have responded to scary fireworks and other countermeasures basically by setting up beach chairs, cracking open 12 packs of Steinlager, and going "ooh!" and "aah!"

Problem is, the states are asking the wrong folks in the other Washington. National Fish and Wildlife bureaucrats probably don't know a lot about the sort of "expanded hazing" required to properly terrorize a suspected troublemaker. But there's quite a lot of evidence that Donald Rumsfeld does.

How hard could it be to have all these flippered evil-doers reclassified as enemy combatants?

Q: Are you serious?

A: Absolutely. If the sea lions eat all the chinook, then the terrorists will have won.

Q: We share your enthusiasm for ridding Washington State Parks of the onerous $5 daily parking fee. But is it a good thing overall for state parks?

A: Yes, but:

It clearly was good from a public-relations standpoint. Our feedback to a recent column exulting in the killing of the fee was overwhelmingly favorable — even gleeful — from dozens of people who described themselves as park users and those who didn't.

It was less than gleeful from a small handful of others.

One garden variety tax-everyone-directly-for-what-they-use zealot decried the loss of the fee — but predictably sputtered and coughed and slinked away when asked if he felt the same way about a per-use fee for roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, airports, libraries and other public services.

Another reader said he's convinced that policing the fee provided extra security to parks, and predicted they'll get trashed without the ticket writers making occasional sweeps.

We'll live with that risk: Parks in this state existed just fine for almost 90 years without meter maids, and they'll make it just fine without them in the future — although a few extra hands on deck to do repairs and patrol and secure parks would certainly be welcome.

A couple of other readers — insiders in the annual parks financing battles in Olympia — were ticked off by our description of "park supporters" who strong-armed the measure through the Legislature. In doing so, this argument goes, fee opponents blasted a hole in park budgets and worse, sabotaged better options, such as a financing package that would have boosted cash for parks and eliminated the fee at the same time.

Our take: Unfortunately, based on a long history of observing this issue, that bigger, better package was wishful thinking. The fee was a wildly unpopular, band-aid approach to a park-decay wound that still needs permanent suturing.

But those park-budget warriors — bless them, by the way — have a valid point. Park users need to turn some of their enthusiasm for killing the fee into political support for park funding, or those free parks will start to look free for a reason. It's that simple. And that important.

Ron Judd's Trail Mix column appears here every Thursday. To contact him: 206-464-8280 or rjudd@seattletimes.com.