Officials in a small Oregon fishing village have deployed a giant, motorized fake orca whale in their latest attempt to scare off hundreds of sea lions who have made the local port’s docks their new home.
City leaders in Astoria, Oregon, say they are hoping the 32-foot-long faux whale will succeed where such tactics as electric mats and brightly colored beach balls placed outside the docks have failed.
It really is a sign of how desperate the measures are that we’re taking to try and solve this problem. We simply don’t have the financial resources to build barriers. We have no choice but to look for very creative and low cost solutions.
– Jim Knight, Port of Astoria Executive Director
The sea lions usually show up in Astoria, a town of some 10,000 people on the Columbia Riverabout 70 miles (113 km) northwest of Portland, in the winter and then leave as the weather warms.
But this year they came in February and didn’t leave, officials say, and hundreds now sleep and sit on the docks around the clock, eating fish that sustains the local community.
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