The Calif. Sea Lion population is at carrying capacity and we should expect higher mortalities when and if an El Niño arrives here. Current anchovy surveys show a healthy stock with egg and larva analysis of about a million ton biomass. There are several threatened and endangered steelhead and salmon populations suffering from Calif. Sea Lion predation .
"Population: The U.S. population of California sea lions is currently estimated at up to 300,000 animals, all on the Pacific coast. From an estimated population of about 10,000 animals in the 1950s, U.S. California sea lion numbers have grown rapidly since the 1970s and the species is now at “carrying capacity”—near the highest level the environment can sustain—according to wildlife biologists. A population survey conducted in 2006 by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) documented 1,200 California sea lions and 1,000 Steller sea lions near the mouth of the Columbia River alone.
Diet: California sea lions feed on a variety of fish and shellfish, including salmon, steelhead, Pacific whiting, herring, mackerel, eulachon, lamprey, codfish, walleye Pollock, spiny dogfish and squid. In recent years, they have also been observed preying on Columbia River sturgeon. Studies of scat samples collected in coastal waters and the Columbia River estuary indicate that salmon comprise 10 to 30 percent of the animals’ diet. Additional studies have shown that the percentage of salmon and steelhead in sea lions’ diet increases as they move upriver. Each year since 2004, California sea lions have consumed 3,000 to 3,500 salmon and steelhead immediately below Bonneville Dam, according to an ongoing study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers."