Well what a nice dialogue to follow. There are many problems affecting salmonid stocks...and seals and sealions are one of those many. Should we kill them all? No...thats one of the old solutions that got us the Marine Mammal Act and ignores that predators do have a necessary place in the lives of salmonids. But on the other hand there has been a three fold explosion in seal and seal lion populations in Puget Sound. One of the simple rules of nature is that in the face of significantly increased predator populations the prey populations will be reduced to a level from which they are unable to rebound to their previous numbers. The prey population stabilizes at that lower number as long as the predator population remains stable.
In the case of my home rivers steelhead we can totally remove all other factors....spend a million bucks on habitat...but as long as that predator-prey relationship remains stable there won't be an increase in fish coming back. Solution? Do I want to eradicte those predators? No...but I would like some form of control to be considered. Playing God? Nope. Playing human yep. One thing for some to consider...our ecosystem or landscape has been significantly changed and its to some degree permanent. Making everything like it was 100 years ago isn't going to be the solution...but learning to live with what we have may lead to solutions.

I'm getting a really itchy finger again ...