Please do the right thing -…

Please do the right thing - stop this change to the Ontario Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act.

Ontario government proposal is not a wildlife management program, it's an eradication plan that will push cormorants back to brink of extinction in the province

The Government of Ontario is setting the stage to make what is probably the worst, most regressive, wildlife management decision in Canadian history and one that will drive an important, ecologically beneficial native waterbird back to the brink of extinction, or worse, in the province.

A recent Environmental Registry of Ontario posting announced that the Government is seeking input on a proposed change to the province’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act that will:

▪ designate double-crested cormorants as a “game” species,
▪ create a provincewide annual hunting season from March 15 until Dec 31,
▪ allow anyone holding a valid Ontario Outdoors Card and small game hunting license to kill up to 50 cormorants per day (1,500 per month or more than 14,000 per season), including nesting parents and,
▪ allow the carcasses to spoil (i.e., rot).

The Government’s proposal would:

▪ allow the wholesale, uncontrolled, impossible to monitor, slaughter of cormorants across the province,
▪ devastate and possibly eradicate a recovered native wildlife species,
▪ cause damaging levels of disturbance and the destruction of numerous non-target bird species,
▪ irreparably damage natural ecosystems,
▪ encourage the worst form of “slob hunting,”
▪ endanger the public by allowing shooting throughout the summer season when lakes and natural areas are populated by Ontario residents and tourists.
Why?

The Government of Ontario says it is responding to concerns about too many cormorants, depleted fish stocks and environmental damage. But those concerns are largely just anecdotes, complaints from a small, radical segment of the fishing community, and unsubstantiated claims that were debunked long ago. There is no substantive body of evidence proving that cormorants are depleting fish stocks or causing any ecological problems whatsoever.

The reality is that cormorants are a natural part of Ontario’s rich biodiversity and an ecologically beneficial species, being major predators of invasive fish species, like round gobies and alewives, attracting other waterbirds to their nesting sites, and serving other important functions in the ecosystems they inhabit.

A Recovered Species

Persecution by humans and pesticide poisoning all but wiped out cormorants in Ontario on two previous occasions but, in recent years, they have returned and populated those habitats that will support them.

Far from being overabundant, cormorant numbers are relatively modest, have stabilized and are dropping in some areas. The entire North American double-crested cormorant population is estimated to be less than the population of Toronto, with about 250,000 in the entire Great Lakes Basin and considerably less residing in Ontario.

Extinction?

Because they are conspicuous birds that congregate in colonies on exposed islands and peninsulas (only about 3% of potential island sites in the Great Lakes are suitable), they are particularly vulnerable, being easily targeted and killed, especially when nesting. Small congregations could be wiped out in just a few minutes or an hour, while larger colonies could be destroyed in just a few days or a week.

Radical cormorant-haters have already attacked colonies under cover of night, destroying nests, stomping on chicks and killing adults. Once the proposed changes to the law come into effect, these people will be given free rein to destroy as many cormorants as they want. It wouldn’t take very many people very long to wipe out most cormorants in the province, leaving just a tiny remnant of their population in a few protected areas. And driving them back to near extinction or even worse in Ontario is a real possibility.

This is unacceptable and unscientific.