Action on reducing the…

Action on reducing the cormorant numbers is long over due. I have a cottage on Balsam lake. Over the last 3 years I have seen the minnow population decline, and sunfish/ perch fishing almost non existent.

It is my opinion that the cormorants have eaten such bait fish and taken this food source away from other game fish such as pickerel, bass and muskie.

I have fished this lake for over 30years and in the last 2 years fishing has declined to catastrophic levels. This decline has occurred while the cormorant population has exploded. The lake shore has been almost fully developed for a long time so the human factors should not have had such an impact on the fishing. However what has changed is the establishment of a large cormorant population. I'm afraid the damage done to the fishery environment is irreversible without taking action to exterminate the cormorants .

While fishing on lake Erie and lake Simcoe, seeing the flocks of cormorants and their feeding forages, convinces me that action needs to be taken before irreparable damage is done to the environment, commercial and game fishing, and the economic spin offs on those lakes.