Sea Lions Facing Their Ultimate Faux: Fake Willy

In the 10-year war against California sea lions, biologists in Seattle have tried shooting them with rubber bullets, scaring them with firecrackers and repulsing them with really bad music.

None of it has worked. As Popeye is drawn to spinach, so the sea lions continue to feast on the easy meals of what may be the world’s most-watched salmon runs, in the Ballard locks that lead to Seattle’s inland waterways.

Frustrated and nearly out of ideas, the authorities fear that some fish, particularly the prized steelhead trout, may be facing extinction. The problem, biologists say, is that the big, fish-chomping sea lion faces no predator.

Enter Fake Willy. He is a 16-foot faux orca, slick as the real thing, made of fiberglass - a gift of enterprising citizens who have raised more than $6,000 to get the project under way.

For the last week, Fake Willy has been lurking in Puget Sound, just beneath the surface, tied to buoys and anchors. The idea is that the sea lions, couch potatoes of the marine world, will have the wits scared out of them by the phony killer whale.

“We think Fake Willy has a 50-50 chance of working,” said Rudy McCoy, an organizer of the project.

Of course, many people wonder why the sea lions will not simply swim around the fiberglass scarecrow, or quickly discover that Fake Willy, unlike his counterpart in the film “Free Willy,” does not move around much. Many of those people are marine biologists.

“We don’t think it will work,” said Brian Gorman, a spokesman for the National Marine Fisheries Service, which gave a 30-day permit to Fake Willy’s handlers, a loose-knit group that includes concerned fishermen, radio station promoters, amateur biologists and active citizens. “On the other hand, we see no reason not to give it a try.”

The alternative, which may happen this winter, is to kill the sea lions before they kill the fish runs.

Sea lions ordinarily migrate to California in the winter. But a number of them have discovered that it is much easier to park themselves in front of the locks with their mouths open. Most of the year, it is a gravy train of salmon and steelhead trout.

Officials have gone so far as to capture and ship sea lions to California, only to have them return - sometimes within days. Recent changes in the Federal Marine Mammal Protection Act allow biologists to take action against mammal populations that have grown and threaten other species.

The visitors from California are not the only wildlife with which Seattle has been skirmishing. Fat, fearless Canada geese are an enormous problem, invading parks, lawns and shorelines.

But the sea lions threaten an enduring icon of this region. They snag fish returning from a life at sea, on the way to spawning waters in the foothills above the city.

The locks are where the fresh water of Seattle’s lakes joins the salt water from Puget Sound. They are a major passage for ships and fish, and a big draw for tourists who delight in watching salmon leap through fish ladders.

Last year, the authorities captured five of the most troublesome sea lions and prepared them for execution. A tribe of Indians volunteered to eat them, recalling old tribal traditions. But at the last minute, a marine park in Florida intervened, offering to take in the salmon-eaters.

Animal rights supporters, who have been especially upset by man’s effort to assert himself at the top of the sea lion-salmon food chain, hope the fake orca effort will commute the sea lions’ death sentence.

“I met with the animal rights people and they seemed very happy to have Fake Willy around,” said McCoy, who is somewhat of civic prankster. “They seemed less happy that I was eating a roast beef sandwich at the time.”

Fake Willy has until the end of this month to prove his worth. After that, his keepers will submit their findings, trying to convince officials that the scarecrow concept could be part of the effort against the sea lions.

The biologists remain skeptical. They are unsure whether orcas even go after sea lions in Puget Sound. There is a resident pod of killer whales north of here in the San Juan Islands, but few of them have ever been seen eating sea lions.

Most recently, biologists have been using a high-pitched underwater screeching sound to scare away sea lions. The uninitiated are spooked. But the veterans are unmoved, said Tim Waters, a spokesman for the Washington State Fish and Wildlife Department.

“What Fake Willy has done is bring a lot of attention to this issue,” Waters said. “So, even if it doesn’t work, we say, kudos.”