WALLA WALLA, Wash. – To further protect endangered salmon and steelhead, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Walla Walla District (Corps) is expanding its current nonlethal avian hazing program at five Corps dams to incorporate limited lethal “take” of certain piscivorous or fish-eating birds. The expanded efforts will focus specifically on ring-billed gulls, California gulls and, to a lesser extent, double-crested cormorants within the Walla Walla District. This expanded effort is in conjunction with the Corps’ existing nonlethal hazing program to manage piscivorous birds, which uses pyrotechnics and other noisemaking devices, water-spray cannons, and passive deterrent structures to dissuade birds away from certain areas at Corps dams where they prey on salmonids. Lethal removal will be used only if nonlethal methods are not successful.