June 4 was the 10th anniversary of Astoria’s unintentionally humorous attempts to shoo the sea lions away from the East Mooring basin, which even attracted national news attention.

Deploying loads of beach balls was a colorful, but vain attempt to scare sea lions off the docks, and on May 27, 2015, NBC’s “Today” show sent reporter Joe Fryer here. In the background was the “sound track of Astoria, a sea lion symphony.” 

Terry Buzzard was interviewed, and he announced that he was going to schlep his 32-foot remote-controlled fake killer whale, aka Willy, normally used to promote his Bellingham, Washington, whale-watching business, down to Astoria to see if it could budge the sea lions. 

His attitude was: “What have we got to lose?” Especially since the orca’s prop would be equipped with killer whale sounds.

Willy arrived on June 4, and the ensuing debacle is best described by The Daily Astorian’s then-photographer Joshua Bessex’s X feed. Willy’s debut started at 7:41 p.m., and ended at 8:24 p.m. with: “Willy is belly up. Sea lions aren’t budging. It’s over.” Willy was towed ashore (pictured) in disgrace.

In honor of this rather ridiculous battle in Astoria’s history, Heather Douglas has created a 20-page comic book, available at oscarastoriaart.etsy.com. “… I think I created it because I have been nostalgic for past events,” she noted. And this one’s a doozy. (Photo: Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian)