I do not agree with the…

I do not agree with the proposal to establish a hunting season for the double-crested cormorants in Ontario.

I am a hunter and a farmer. I try to promote and grow life and I regularly take life - for food. It is not an easy way of life and if the taking of life should ever get 'easy', I will have to stop what I am doing.

I can only agree to the proposal if the cormorant hunt was for food. The amendment to allow the carcasses to spoil, absolutely disgusts me. As a hunter, it is my responsibility to honour the life that I take. It is abhorrent to me to kill something and let it rot where it lies. At least feed it to something else... a dog or raccoons or whatever.

Likewise, the daily bag limit of 50 birds seems irresponsible. How can someone take 50 lives per day and for 8 months?! And as stated previously, for what? It is not for food but for pot-shots at another animal who is trying to live and raise its young. Is this some perverted way to deal with gun violence? By letting people shoot off guns at other creatures?

As for the 'blight' that the cormorants cause with their guano, why can we not harvest it and use it? Guano used to be a valued and internationally traded commodity. Perhaps the government should put out a RFP in the harvesting and processing of guano for fertilizer... certified organic at that!

What I feel is really at the heart of the 'problem' is the modern human need to control nature and the very shallow sense of appearance over value (value over and above human uses and needs). Good on the cormorants in making a comeback.

I used to live in Toronto and I would visit the Leslie Spit regularly. The Spit is an aggregate dump. Humans made it. Perhaps it is time to let nature do its thing. Perhaps the Spit wants to become a tree-less island for birds... maybe just for cormorants. If we can get past our own biases and hubris, perhaps we can participate honestly and lovingly in the changing dynamics of nature as-is and not as we want it to be.

Thank You.