Re: EBR # 013-4124 The EBR…

Re: EBR # 013-4124

The EBR document online states that Double-crested Cormorant “…populations declined significantly in the Great Lakes from the 1950s to the 1970s primarily due to environmental contaminants affecting reproduction.” That does not address the fact that even as the species was suffering the effects of “environmental contaminants” it was still also experiencing extensive persecution.

It is widely believed that while there can be no question that, when primarily Eurasian colonization took hold in the Western Hemisphere the Double-crested Cormorant’s range extended from Alaska to Newfoundland and Labrador, and south into the subtropical regions. But it was also believed that the species somehow missed the Great Lakes, a preposterous belief, but one based on a near absence of viable specimen or other objective material indicating it was a Great Lakes breeding species, east of Lake of the Woods, prior to the 20th Century.

But, prior evidence of a greater North American abundance of the species overall was well document by Wires and Cuthbert (http://www.bioone.org/doi/pdf/10.1675/1524-4695(2006)29%5B9:HPOTDC%5D2…) . The evidence of breeding birds in the Great Lakes prior to the 20th century is thin, but not absent. Space does not allow me to provide verification of the contention but it exists, partly based on what was provided by Charles Fothergill (1782-1840) and Thomas McIlwraith (1824-1903) and remains from 16th century kitchen middens. The Double-crested Cormorant was eliminated, or nearly so, from the Great Lakes not once, but twice.

Wildlife populations are neither static nor stationary

The subject is complex, but a good non-technical and simplified tutorial on the subject as it relates to the first part, population size, can be found here: https://www.uaex.edu/environment-nature/wildlife/youth-education/TR%20B…. It is important that such basics be understood in order to comprehend the inanity of the EBR proposal under discussion.

As a rule, elected governments base policy decisions on scientifically-obtained information, on what is the latest best evidence, and not simply on what one less-informed group believes, and that is what I urge be done here.

In balance, there is no serious cormorant-caused depredation, directly or indirectly, to those species of fish of interest to sport anglers and commercial fishing interests has been demonstrated by numerous studies that date back over a century and this fact should not be ignored.

The question is not if some people think cormorants eat “too many” fish, or compete with human consumers for desired fish stocks --- that assumption has been made for every familiar native bird species that eat fish, including loons, Ospreys, all three native mergansers, grebes, Belted Kingfishers, herons, pelicans and so on. Third-party academic research shows that, with appropriate caveats, this concern about cormorants is contradicted by facts. See:
http://www.torontobirding.ca/toc-docs/CormorantsAOU07ConservationAddn5…)

The reason people think cormorants eat too many fish, indeed, have an irrationally visceral hatred of the species overall, is multifaceted, and I have tried to offer a general account of why I think this opprobrium exists here: https://www.animalalliance.ca/why-so-many-people-hate-cormorants/.

However, that is somewhat a different question from the one of why people think cormorants eat too many fish, which in good part has been answered by the Ministry of Natural Resources for the State of Wisconsin (https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/birds/doublecrestedcormorant.html):

The problem is that for people not schooled in ecology, or only lightly so, the concept of complimentary mortality is unknown. In their minds, without knowing the terms “additive” and “compensatory” in this context, the assumption is that all predation is additive. This was, indeed, the prevailing concept of the 19th century, when essentially all predators were deemed “bad” if they ate “game”, such prey being “good”, because we could use it.

Even now it an often-held view. It was a concept highly motivating to the late Jack Miner (1865 - 1944) who was widely influential to the generation preceding my own, and who trapped and killed all birds of prey, mammal predators or species he didn’t like, and was greatly honored in his day.

While Miner and this kind of naïve thinking has been repudiated and condemned by biologists from Miner’s time forward, clearly it still lingers, as the EBR under discussion attests. It embarrasses me as on Ontarian that in 2018 we still see the risk of government policy reverting to these 19th century concepts, and yet it is exactly the kind of rationale in play in the EBR.

Exceptions where there has been a temporary but discernable decline in fish following an increase in cormorants (which may or may not have been the primary factor in the fish decline) are therefore extremely rare, but invariably cited by those who hate cormorants.

The Total Allowable Catch (TAC) is, at least supposedly, a good, best-evidence-based indicator of population size of the species to which it is addressed, and also, over time, a good indicator of trends in fish population size. Below we see the TAC for two important commercially and recreationally harvested fish stocks in Lake Erie over the time when Double-crested Cormorant numbers peaked. The data clearly show that the cormorants did not produce any discernable impact on numbers of such fish. Here are the figures for Lake Erie Yellow Perch and Walleye over the last 18 years.

To look at the same question in another light, statistics from the Glenora Fisheries Research Station (Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources) are used. In 1991, for example, there were about 6.1 million sport fish in eastern Lake Ontario. The average annual food consumption by a single Lake Trout is 6.5 kg. The average annual intake of a cormorant on Lake Ontario is 65 kg. In other words one cormorant eats about as much as ten Lake Trout. Approximately 30,000 cormorants fed in eastern Lake Ontario in 1991. Thus, these birds would eat the same amount of fish as 300,000 Lake Trout. Since there are about 6.1 million sport fish in eastern Lake Ontario, this means the cormorants are eating the same amount of fish as only 5% of the sport fish. Hence, scientists and fish managers conclude that the amount of fish which cormorants consume in eastern Lake Ontario is not a serious threat to the sport fish.
The information is available here: http://publications.gc.ca/site/archivee-archived.html?url=http://public…
The document is incorrect in saying that the Double-crested Cormorant is the only species of cormorant of the six found in North America that inhabits inland lakes and waterways. The Neotropic Cormorant (Phalacrocorax brasilianus) does as well. In other parts of its range, so does the Great Cormorant (P. carbo). Both species are known to occur in Ontario but are ignored in the EBR listing under discussion, I address them, below.
When commercial fishers off our sea coasts see swarms of such birds as gulls, shearwaters and gannets above a broiling sea they know it means that there are a lot of small fish concentrated in the area, chased up by bigger fish. They don’t shoot the gulls, gannets or other birds; they know that the gulls represent a healthy number of fish that the fishermen want – not the ones the gulls are eating – but the larger ones attracted to the smaller ones, of which only a tiny portion is actually consumed by the birds. Cormorants are also a sign of lake health and robust fish populations no less than feeding frenzies in sea waters.
“Island forest habitats” are also identified as a matter of concern to those advocating for a reduction or total elimination of, the Double-crested Cormorant. Their concern is understandable. Remembering a near or total absence of cormorants many people are disconcerted by the most noticeable and undeniable result of the species’ recovery.
I would generally characterize that result as a return of island habitats to their original state, as they would have been had cormorants never been wiped out in the first place. Taking into account that the carrying capacity for cormorants in Ontario (but not North America overall, as the above cited Wires and Cuthbert paper.
There is nothing inherently “wrong” or ecologically destructive about letting nature act naturally. The cycles and incomprehensibly interconnected interrelationships between all the various parts of the environmental whole adhere to a cause and effect universe within the laws of Newtonian physics, nothing more or less.
The law already allows actions, up to and including lethal removal of cormorants, in that instance. A new and unenforceable, Draconian measure is not needed.
Even in the absence of an economic concern the means to protect trees from having cormorants already exist.
The unknown (and unknowable) number of trees killed by the presence of cormorants, either in absolute terms or as a percentage of trees overall, is miniscule. Simply eliminating that part of the Ontario government’s omnibus bill 66 that will allow “development” in the Green Belt and on the Oak Ridges Moraine will lead to the saving of significantly more trees, and more benefit from those trees, than would occur from eliminating all cormorants, pelicans and herons from the province. A minor reduction in allowable tree removal by the forest industry would do the same.
The EBR also mentions as a rationale for this truly egregious policy concern voiced by members of the public for “other species”, none of which are specified. Certainly the proposal itself puts a wide range of species at direct or indirect risk, including loons, pelicans, the other two cormorant species known to occur in Ontario, herons and egrets and terns.
The EBR makes no mention of funding to increase the number of Conservation Officers, or to provide them with necessary training and resources to protect other fish-eating birds.
The EBR states: “…the Ministry is proposing to create a hunting season for double-crested cormorants in Ontario. This new population management tool would allow persons who hold a small game licence to hunt these birds.”
It is not “hunting” as the term is defined in Canada.
In all previous instances following the 19th Century, “seasons” for game (including the trapping of furbearers) defined within Canadian legislation have been predicated on the need to “harvest” individuals of native (and even non-native) species only on a sustainable level, usually by protecting them at times when either they are unsuitable for use (consumption, or commercial sale in the case of furbearers and commercially captured fish species) or are breeding or attending dependent young. The only “closed” season on Double-crested Cormorants will be from Jan first to March 14, when they are almost completely absent from the province. The foundational precepts of post-19th century hunting have been sustainability, utilization and, albeit to a lesser degree, “fair chase”.
There can be little or no “sport” involved in shooting cormorants. They have no choice but to return to their nests and, as observations of culls have demonstrated to me, will fly back to their colony even when being shot off their nests, even when their mate is killed.
The EBR says:
1. List the double-crested cormorant as a “Game Bird”.Hunters would be required to have an outdoors card and small game licence to hunt double-crested cormorants, similar to other species of game birds.
What is being proposed is not remotely similar to what outdoors cards and small game licences allow with regard to “…other species of game birds.” All “other species of game birds” are hunted in the exact opposite manner, requiring utilization of the meat, bag limits and seasons set to prevent reduction of their respective populations, and at least a relative modicum of “fair chase”.
The EBR calls this eradication programme a “new population management tool”. It is not “managing” the population as the term is traditionally defined. No game management is predicated on eliminating the species being “managed” and wasting it as well.
Each cormorant weighs about 4 pounds. Any hunter filling the limit for a day’s hunt would have to dispose of approximately two hundred pounds of waste. The EBR provides no mechanism that would either enforce this happening, nor explain how it could.
Cormorant plumage is not nearly as waterproof as that of ducks, geese, and swans, and so those not retrieved from water quickly will sink. It is not normal for larger numbers of animals the size of cormorants to do so without deleterious effects to the water column overall.
There is no description of what “regulations to implement the exemption and requirements” could even be created, let alone an estimate of costs and source of funding.
The EBR states:
To accompany the proposed hunting seasons, the Ministry will implement a cormorant monitoring program to assess population status and trends. Monitoring of cormorants will allow the Ministry to assess the impacts of the hunting season and to adjust cormorant hunting regulations if necessary to address any concerns about population sustainability.
The proposal makes no mention where the source of the funding for population monitoring is to come, or how it is going to be applied given the rapidity by which significant population reduction will occur.
The take that will be allowed is not remotely “sustainable”. There will be colonies that be protected by enlightened management informed by basic scientific knowledge and the precepts of conservation, yes, but no indication is given in the EBR of any effort to determine how that will prevent the near, and possibly complete, eradication of the species as a breeding bird in Ontario within a relatively short period of time.
The EBR states: “The anticipated environmental consequences of the proposal are expected to be neutral”. The cormorant is an apex predator thus cannot help but be part of the environment, so a reduction in its numbers cannot help but produce “environmental consequences”.

The EBR states that, “The double-crested cormorant is abundant in Ontario and anticipated levels of harvest aren’t expected to affect sustainability.”
If there is no effect on sustainability, and the population is expected to remain stable, as it is in the management of other game birds, why do it? It requires monitoring of the cormorants and at a time when Conservation Officers, already underfunded, are busy with regulations pertaining to sport fishing; they will also have to monitor cormorant hunting.
No one “harvests” anything so that it can be thrown away. What is being proposed is not a “harvest” by the furthest stretch of the term and should not be so called.

The EBR states, “Hunters will continue to be reminded to properly identify their targets to avoid conflicts with migratory game birds and other waterbirds.”
How? An unenforceable law is not good legislation.
The EBR states that “Monitoring of cormorant populations will allow adjustments in cormorant hunting regulations as necessary”. How will that be done and at what cost?
The EBR states: “Those interested in hunting cormorants or who believe cormorants are having detrimental impacts will likely support the proposed changes.”
Why would those who believe cormorants are having detrimental impacts likely support changes that will not have any impact on population size? The proposal is to placate those believing cormorants are destructive to stocks of fish of interest to them, and that they damage the landscape to the detriment of the environment and esthetic values. The EBR says so.
The EBR does not address the reasoning, the science or lack thereof, behind either proponents of the proposal, nor its detractors, implying equal weight to all arguments, without addressing any. Individuals and groups do support or oppose the proposal, but the issue should be why, and the reasons judged objectively. This is not happening and there is no opportunity, with the possible exception of future court challenges for it to happen.
Hunters motivated by oft-stated “ethics” of hunting will not likely obtain permits to shoot cormorants. Those ethics include fair chase, sustainability, and utilization. They did not legislatively exist during the 19th century and earlier, we there was loss of many very common, even abundant, native species. We learned that abundance alone is no guarantee against extinction.
As Environment Canada explains:
“it [the Migratory Birds Convention Act] only protected migratory birds considered either useful or harmless to humans. … several species of migratory birds which were excluded due to their “undesirability” to humans. For example, pelicans, cormorants, hawks and owls… These birds have since been recognized for their importance to both humans and the environment and have become protected under provincial and territorial legislation.”

Hunters who would not waste meat or kill more than they thereby need, or kill for the sake of killing are not necessarily versed on cormorant diets and may assume that cormorants are, indeed, deleterious to desired species of fish, and may “buy into” this plan and shoot cormorants, but the appeal is to those for whom killing is the attraction.
There is real risk of conflict between such hunters and the public, given that the “season” proposed extends through the peak holiday season on lakes in Ontario where cormorants occur. The majority of people who enjoy and use the out of doors are not hunters, and this demographic is being ignored in favour of those who are, and, I would suggest, the worst-motivated of those.
Having been observing cormorants for 61 years, I have come to be fascinated by them. Many happy hours have been spent in or at the edge of colonies or in a boat observing them fishing or flying overhead or tending their young. As an artist I have frequently portrayed them. I have borne the scars of wounded ones I’ve rescued, a small price to pay for saving so vibrant a life, when possible. I literally know them inside out, having dissected many. Most of the places one goes, they are not to be found, making the places I can see them all the more special to people like me.
What is being proposed will leave many young to die from effects similar to be putting into an oven. Others will die of hypothermia, dehydration does, or starvation. One parent alone can’t prevent such lingering deaths.
Under the Criminal Code of Canada (Criminal Code Part XI: Wilful and forbidden acts in respect of certain property: cruelty to animals) everyone commits an offence punishable on summary conviction who, “(a) wilfully causes or, being the owner, wilfully permits to be caused unnecessary pain, suffering or injury to an animal or a bird”.

The language is archaic and the law outdated, but it seems possible that the Criminal Code would apply to killing parent cormorants with dependent young. Any such culling would easily be demonstrated as being willful even if the plan is to disguise the practice as “hunting”. Addressing something by a name other than what it is does not make it so, in the laws of the law.

Ontario’s provincial legislation, the OSPCA Act (R.S.O. 1990, Chapter 0.36) is relevant in defining cruelty to animals. It does include birds, and defines “distress” as “…the state of being in need of proper care, water, food or shelter or being injured, sick or in pain or suffering or being abused or subject to undue or unnecessary hardship, privation of neglect.”

The killing of parent birds might meet this definition. The proposal is moot on the issue of euthanizing such young – hardly “hunting” – which at any rate would not be possible with regard those in high tree nests, nor if the colony itself is protected. It is a badly conceived idea on so many levels that I find it hard to believe it was ever put forward, let alone done so in such cavalier fashion. Ontarians deserve better.

There is other cruelty that will derive from this proposal and that includes the inevitably high wounding rates that will occur. In ordinary waterfowl hunting the rates are around the thirty percent mark, so far as we can determine from what little research has been done, although the range of estimates is broad (see, for example, https://kb.rspca.org.au/what-are-the-wounding-rates-associated-with-duc…). It should be noted that when wounded birds can do so, they tend to seek to land on shore before their less than waterproof plumage slowly drags them under, so it will not necessarily be a case of “out of sight out of mind”, but rather a further source of distress to the non-hunting majority of people who enjoy nature and our waterways.
We are long past the time when we should see nature and natural forces as adversarial to our interests. It is, in the end, the environment that supports us, and all we do.
I strongly as I can urge rejection of this proposal.