Few Get Away as Herschel Becomes Hooked on Trout

--A fat, sassy California sea lion nicknamed Herschel is being blamed for the devastation of an entire run of steelhead trout, one of the most popular game fish in the Pacific Northwest. Herschel has taken up residence at a fish ladder at the entrance to the Lake Washington Ship Canal, a bottleneck through which the seagoing trout must pass to reach their spawning grounds in Washington’s Cedar River and its tributaries. Sea lions are a protected species under the 1972 Marine Mammal Act. Herschel--who weighs between 600 and 900 pounds--is often accompanied by as many as three small sea lions on his daily chow raids from mid-November through March. “They’re living in the wild and that’s their food source,� said Bill Dickerson, of the National Marine Fisheries Service. “That’s just like going to the supermarket for him.� Experts say they can’t harm Herschel, but they hope there’s another solution, such as trapping him and moving him where he’ll cause less damage.

--The Christmas card this year for President Reagan and his wife, Nancy, is a reproduction of a water color of the White House Blue Room, decorated for the holidays, by artist Thomas William Jones of Bellevue, Wash. Inside the card is the message, in gold engraved script: “The President and Mrs. Reagan extend to you their warmest wishes during the holiday season and throughout the coming year.� About 125,000 cards were printed by Hallmark at cost, the White House said, and the cost of printing and mailing was paid by the Republican National Committee.

--Former World Chess champion Anatoly Karpov has asked for a rematch with Gary Kasparov, who took the title away from Karpov in Moscow on Nov. 9, the official Soviet news agency Tass said. A tentative date for the match is from Feb. 10 to April 21.

--Forbes magazine paid a world record price of $157,500 for an 18th-Century bottle of red wine made for Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. It was four times the previous record for a bottle of wine. The 1787 Chateau Lafitte claret, inscribed with the initials “Th.J.� was sold at Christie’s auction house in London. Christopher Forbes, 35, said the wine would be added to the family’s collection of American presidential relics. “It’s more fun than the opera glasses Lincoln was holding when he was shot--and we have those, too,� said Forbes, third son of the magazine’s founder, Malcolm Forbes.