The Ontario government’s…

The Ontario government’s proposal will allow individuals with a small game license to kill up to 50 cormorants per day. That works out to approximately 1,500 cormorants per month or up to 14,250 cormorants for the entire proposed annual hunting season.

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 not be beneficial.

In fact, the process of killing them will force other bird species to vacate the colony sites they share.

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.

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.

It is the commercial fisheries in Lake Erie and other lakes that are depleting fish populations, not cormorants.

The mass killing of cormorants will damage the environment and disrupt natural ecosystem processes.

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.

Changes in the composition of vegetation in and around bird colonies are a sign of vibrant, healthy, dynamic natural ecosystem processes.

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 available for cormorants and other colonial waterbirds to nest on.

The mass killing being proposed by the Ontario government is a political response to anecdotes, unsubstantiated claims and complaints by a small group of radical fishermen, supported by special interest groups.

There is no substantive body of scientific evidence supporting their position.

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 a broad range of other issues.

The proposed designation of cormorants as game animals, along with a non-utilization exemption that allows the carcasses to rot should be an affront to every hunter who believes in sportsmanship, fair chase and ethics.

There are 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.

The proposed “hunt” will cause unimaginable cruelty by allowing the wholesale, uncontrolled slaughter of cormorants across the province, wounding adults (video of cormorant with a broken bill: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0pBs6XjtSg&list=PL1asTRKubtRuAy7LWUpMFubz97ydJ…) and orphaning thousands of baby birds who will die from starvation and exposure to the elements.

This would be animal cruelty, to a beautiful species of birds, who ALL want to live, and ALL have a right to live! I enjoy it whenever I see the cormorants. I love nature, as do MANY OTHER PEOPLE.

Stop destroying God's beautiful creations! Humans are not gods; they just act like them sometimes.

Stop killing our wildlife!!!!