I oppose the shooting of…

I oppose the shooting of Double Crested Cormorants in Ontario, as being proposed by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. Their numbers are greater because our water quality is better and this is good news. There is no concrete evidence that cormorants are causing a decline in fish populations. They feed mostly on non-native fish like Alewives and Round Gobies.

The idea of shooting cormorants at their breeding colonies during the breeding season is misguided. Double Crested Cormorants share their breeding colonies with many other colonial nesting birds like Common Terns, Caspian Terns, Black Crowned Herons and Great Egrets. Allowing shooting in the breeding colonies during the breeding season will have a serious disruptive effect on the other species let alone on the cormorants.

Please rethink this entire plan. McMaster University biologist and cormorant researcher, Jim Quinn, makes some excellent points in his article:

https://www.thespec.com/news-story/9059210-nature-not-bullets-should-co…

Please consult with Dr Quinn and other experts to determine the best approach to this situation. He makes an important point:

"cormorants are approaching or have reached a point of zero population growth. That means we may be in a situation where the population is not going to expand any further. Any efforts to kill off a certain number of cormorants, will throw the population back into a more rapid growth form."