I have serious concerns…

I have serious concerns about the "Proposal to establish a hunting season for double-crested cormorants in Ontario". Cormorants have long been unfairly vilified as killing sport fish, but the reality is that according to the Canadian Wildlife Service, less than two percent of a cormorant’s diet consists of sport fish. As Barry Kent McKay explains, “there is no empirical, scientifically determined indication that the fish consumed by cormorants have a significant, measureable negative impact on what is available to commercial and recreational anglers.” Cormorants are opportunity-based fishers – they eat what is most abundant and easily available which prevents them from depleting stocks of any one species.

Permitting a hunting season for nesting birds is cruel and inhumane. While most members of the public aren't in a position to see baby cormorants starving to death after their parents are killed, if they were, most would be as outraged by the thought as I am.

In addition, this change would undermine the entire concept of hunters as people who are killing for sustenance, and who care about the environment. Even if someone would consider consuming cormorants, there is no way that 50 a day could be consumed. And allowing killed birds to remain and decompose undermines the very concept of hunting as a "use" of the environment. It would essentially be killing for fun and not something out government should support.