Fake Orca Summoned To Scare Away Sea Lions In Oregon

In Oregon, the  port of Astoria is battling an unusual problem. How to clear the area of 2300 sea lions without hurting or injuring them. They might be cute to see, but are very destructive, especially in large quantities

The sea lions caused more than 100,000 USD worth of damage just in 2015. Also a lot of feces have to be collected at the end of everyday. They are also a health hazard. The biggest problem though is the amount of salmon  they eat. It hurts local fisheries and if it keeps going on  it may hurt the salmon  species.

To convince the seals to leave, officials have taken away a few docks and yellow taped the edges to discourage the animals from leaping into the boards.

After trying many solutions, they have decided to make a robot Orca to help them and scare the seals away. The whale is made of fiberglass and is nicknamed Willy. The fake Orca belongs to Terry Buzzard who uses it for marketing purposes such as parades. He gave the port a call and asked if they were willing to use the whale. The port accepted.

This is not the first time a fake animal has been summoned. In 1992 they summoned an animal but overtime the seals understood that it was fake and just ignored it. With this newly made version the port hopes that it will work.

My opinion is that it is very cool how they are keeping the seals away with a fake animal. This should be used in the future in other places.