If this government is truly …

If this government is truly "for the people", then it must listen to the all of the people, not just a small sector of powerful stakeholders. This proposal is scientifically baseless and flies in the face of decades of understanding basic ecology and the importance of apex predators to biodiversity.

It is time to stop using cormorants as a scapegoat. According to the Canadian Wildlife Service, cormorants feed primarily on small, largely non-commercial, shallow-water fish (e.g., non-native rainbow smelt and alewife). Only a small percentage of their diet consists of “sport fish".

According to Bird Studies Canada, “the proposed bag limit of 50 Double-crested Cormorants per day per hunter with no possession limit over a nine and a half month open season is exceptionally high, unsustainable, and without precedent under the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act for its failure to address the need for population sustainability.”

US surveys conducted between 2005 and 2016 show a 36% decline in the population (OF. Cuthbert and L. Wires, Unpublished Data, USFWS). Ontario has not conducted a Great Lakes cormorant survey since 2007 to 2009, so any data being used is now 10 years old. How can this proposal be put forward when it is not based on current population statistics and trends?

This proposal will set an unacceptable precedent whereby, for the first time ever in the history of Canadian game management, it will be legal to allow game to be wasted. Hunters will be allowed to shoot from stationary boats in cottage country, even during the height of summer tourism. How will safety measures be enforced? I can't imagine that people in cottage country will be pleased spending their summers with constant gunfire and cormorant carcasses left to spoil on the shorelines of lakes.

Most wildlife species are protected from hunting in the spring when they are caring for their young. There be significant animal cruelty issues involved given that both cormorant parents care for their chicks. How will this mass hunt be managed and monitored? Entire breeding colonies of cormorants and co-inhabiting species such as Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets and, in the north, American White Pelicans, could be eliminated.

The Tommy Thompson Park cormorant colony is the largest in North America, numbering 13,275 nesting pairs in 2016. They achieve a balance between the continued existence of a healthy, thriving cormorant colony and the other ecological, educational, scientific and recreational values. Management techniques include ground nest enhancements, deterrence and site restoration. Their management strategy encourages ground-nesting while discouraging nesting in healthy trees. Management does not include lethal culling or egg oiling.

There are options to this morally bankrupt and precedent setting proposal.