My main concern stems from…

My main concern stems from the unlikelihood that cormorants shot will be consumed. As a hunter, I know few, if any, hunters who will eat merganser due to the reputation of their flesh tasting like their diet (fishy). Hunters will be even less likely to consume cormorants. It seems misleading to me to reclassify them as a game bird to allow hunting of them when it’s highly likely (and no secrete) that most birds killed will go straight in the trash. Hunters all over the place will be wasting game meat, an illegal act, while setting a bad example for new and young hunters by doing so. Few will ever be caught in the act as the enforcement branch of the OMNRF and the Federal counterpart (they are a migratory bird and so I assume the Feds are largely responsible for enforcement) are pathetically underfunded, but it will be happening and those regulators who have put together this proposal are aware of this.

It seems to me the motivation to reclassify cormorants as game birds does not come from a desire for these birds to be harvested and consumed, but simply for them to be killed in the hopes of “controlling” them. Doesn’t sound like a “game bird”. While I am not completely up to speed with the available literature on the impacts of cormorants on fish populations, I suspect this proposed hunt is not backed by evidence, but instead is motivated by pressure from a minority of citizens lobbying to have them controlled because of the assumed negative impact they are having on some fish communities. This is the easy solution to get those lobbying for the rights to kill cormorants to be quite, however I suspect our game fish populations would benefit more from additional enforcement of both recreational and commercial fisheries than a slight reduction in cormorant population size. I recognize that I’m not comparing apples to apples as additional enforcement efforts would cost a great deal more than the addition of this hunt, however my point is that we’re likely not addressing the real threats to our game fish populations with this hunt.

Lastly, I am also a bit troubled by the idea of folks hunting cormorants during the summer months when recreational boating/water use is at its peak. To allow folks with a valid small game licence to hunt cormorants during the summer is asking for a lot of unnecessary conflict and potentially dangerous situations.