I am an academic and artist…

I am an artist and academic who has been researching double crested cormorants for the past two years relative to projects around land use, species cohabitation, and the cultural factors that determine ecological activity in our current age. Working in consultation with leading scientists and administration from the Living City Project, the TRCA, and Tommy Thompson Park, I have had the unique experience of observing, documenting, and creating reactionary works based on cormorant behaviours, including the roosting patterns that have been deemed problematic by supporters of this particular proposal. Through a thorough investigation into the scientific and cultural factors at play in the discussion around double crested cormorants, I wholeheartedly contest this proposal as unethical and unsubstantiated.

This proposal for an open season offers little insight into its implementation, monitoring, research, and timelines. There is no clear understanding of the resources being dedicated toward a public action to cull up to 50 birds per day. Who would monitor the actual numbers of birds being killed? What increase in resources (human and otherwise) will be dedicated to support the policing of cull activity? What ongoing research strategies will be implemented to monitor the effects of such an action on the species' overall population health? The proposal seems deliberately thin, and the tight turnaround on the process suggests that the aforementioned questions remain unanswered at the time of publication.

Cormorants are an ancient group of birds that have evolved successfully throughout North America for millennia. Scientific research has shown that since the rapid decline of cormorants in the region via DDT and other chemicals, significant efforts to rebound the population have been successfully implemented, which have included progressive strategies for maintaining green-space adjacent to cormorant roosts (Tommy Thompson Park, Toronto; see McDonald, Toninger, et. al, pdf attached). There is tangible scientific evidence to suggest that cormorants are feeding on several invasive fish species, thus helping to maintain aquacultures. Furthermore, cormorants act as prey to bald eagles, another species on the rebound in Ontario; scientists argue that the current cormorant population has stabilized, and in some regions, is declining alongside the increased presence of bald eagles. A recent peer-reviewed report published by Dr. Gail Fraser of York University aptly outlines the many ecological ways in which this proposal is problematic (see G. Fraser, link provided).

While I currently reside in Toronto, I have lived the majority of my life in rural Ontario and frequently visit family in lakeside regions where cormorants are nesting. The common argument in favour of the cormorant cull by rural residents rests on the belief that the birds are invasive species, which is not the case, and that they are destroying green-spaces and decimating fish populations as presented in this proposal. The scientific research on the latter two presumptions concludes that a) cormorant populations are lower than in pre-colonial Ontario, b) cormorant roosting sites are a necessary part of the ecosystem, and c) cormorant fish feeding represents little to no threat to the commercial fish populations that the angling community has laid claim to. This proposal validates inaccurate presumptions about an indigenous species, and has created an unnecessary divide between social groups based on whether or not individuals believe cormorants to be "good" or "bad." This is a reductionist approach and from a political perspective, echoes populist strategies for mobilizing targeted communities, a pattern in contemporary politics that has become far too common. What is required of the ministry is the sharing of research-based information on the species to shift perceptions in all communities toward an understanding of the ecological roles that cormorants have and will continue to play. It is not the job of the ministry to politicize nature, rather to ensure its future vitality.

As an artist and art historian, I was quite surprised to read that aesthetics was cited as a contributing factor. Aesthetics is a human-construct based on varying cultural perceptions of beauty. Human biases toward specific visual phenomena can hardly be a sound justification for ecological intervention. Setting a precedent that supports human affections for certain aspects of nature as viable factors in ecological policy-making is absurd and could have future impacts. As an anecdote, cultures that have mobilized cormorants to serve human functions like those in fishing villages in China and Japan have lauded the species in the form of poetry and visual artworks. Aesthetics is relative, and often problematically humanist.

The proposal to lift the spoilage ban is particularly disturbing, in part because of the bio-economical wastage of energy, but more so in terms of the knowing implementation of suffering. As Dr. Fraser discusses, the killing of one cormorant, male or female, will result in the starvation of a chick. What is the justification of a public cull over the humane alternatives – if required at all - offered by scientists (egg oiling, deterrent action, raptor presence, etc.)? Leaving the task of species population management in the hands of an untrained public will absolutely mean that animal suffering will ensue at a great scale. Once spoilage has been lifted with this animal group, can the public assume that future actions on other species are possible?

In the current age that some call the 'anthropocene,’ a term used to describe the irreversible impact of humans on the natural world, it is more important than ever to ensure that any ecological action is approached with the utmost care and respect for nature’s tenuous balance. Historical cases of open-season action (ex – the passenger pigeon) have shown that high population density does not insulate a species from extinction. The effects of an uncontrolled cull are impossible know until they occur; this proposal is a gamble with the balance of nature that we, the stewards of this land, are in no position to take. I strongly urge the ministry to engage in a research-based strategy that brings together key players in the fields of science, culture, traditional and Indigenous knowledge, and politics to assess the situation in a more nuanced way. Only then can an appropriate action, if any, be responsibly taken.