I'm very alarmed at this…

I'm very alarmed at this proposed open season on cormorants for several reasons. There is no substantive body of scientific evidence to support concerns that cormorants eat our fish or damage the natural environment. The mass killing being proposed by the Ontario government is a political response to unsubstantiated claims made by some fishermen and special interest groups who have incited unwarranted hatred for this bird species.

The presence of cormorants benefits other colonial water birds, such as federally protected herons, egrets and pelicans, all of which are stable or growing populations where cormorants are found.The mass killing of cormorants will force other bird species to vacate the colony sites they share. The mass killing of cormorants will damage the environment and disrupt natural ecosystem processes.

There is no way to kill cormorants humanely. Even controlled, organized culls in other regions have resulted in large numbers of injured and crippled birds being left to die of their wounds or starve to death, including nestlings; thousands of orphaned baby birds will die of starvation and exposure to the elements.

Cormorants are beneficial because their diet consists of very large numbers of primarily invasive fish, such as alewives and round gobies, as well as other non-commercial, non-forage species.

Instead of making cormorants a scapegoat for environmental problems they have nothing to do with, attention should be given to addressing the issues that actually do affect fish populations and aquatic environments, such as climate change, pollution, shoreline and habitat destruction, over-fishing and commercial fisheries.

The number of trees that die in colonial waterbird colonies across the province is minuscule and wouldn’t even equal the number of trees in a single modestly-sized woodlot or taken in one day by Ontario’s logging industry. Only a small number of islands (less than 3%) and peninsula sites are suitable for cormorants and other colonial waterbirds to nest on.

The return of cormorants, a native wildlife species, to the Great Lakes Basin is part of a natural process and should be celebrated. Cormorants are not overabundant in the Great Lakes. In fact, their numbers are modest, now stabilized and are dropping in many areas.

The proposed designation of cormorants as game animals is ridiculous, since they are inedible. Allowing a carcass to rot goes against the ethics taught in any hunting course. There are also very real safety issues where hunters are permitted to discharge firearms throughout the spring, summer and fall season when lakes and natural areas are populated by cottagers and tourists.