I are strongly opposed to…

I are strongly opposed to the proposal to establish a hunting season for Double-crested Cormorants in Ontario. It is an unscientific slaughter reflecting ignorance and slaughter of an entire species - genocide.

Cormorants are beneficial because their diet consists of very large numbers of primarily invasive fish, such as alewives and round gobies. It is the commercial fisheries in Lake Erie and other lakes that are depleting fish populations, not Cormorants.

The concern expressed by commercial fishing interests is not supported by science-based evidence. Through careful analysis, the Canadian Wildlife Service has repeatedly found that only 2% of Cormorant’s diet consists of commercially valuable species.

Cormorants are not overabundant in the Great Lakes. In fact, their numbers are modest, now stabilized and dropping in many areas.

The proposed “hunt” will cause unimaginable cruelty by allowing the wholesale, uncontrolled slaughter of cormorants across the province, wounding adults and leaving young in the nests to suffer and die. It will be repugnant to the vast majority of Ontario residents and should not be the reputation the current Ontario Government wants as its legacy.

The majority of hunters would despise such killing, such slaughter. This is not hunting and it tarnishes hunters and hunting. Senseless slaughter is not hunting.