In Ontario there is great…

In Ontario there is great concern about the Ford government’s plan for the wholesale slaughter of Double-crested cormorants across the province. According to the government's proposed regulation, any hunter with a valid Outdoors Card and a Small Game Hunting License will be able to shoot up to 50 cormorants per day for 10 months of the year (March 15 - December 30). And then hunters can legally let the dead birds rot! The proposed regulations specify these points very clearly. It is little more than an effort to eradicate cormorants from Ontario.

Recently on CBC Radio the Ontario Environment Commissioner Dianne Saxe said:

“ Cormorants are a native species in Ontario. They were almost eradicated partly due to pesticides and DDT. And, they have made a tremendous comeback in Ontario and now the government is proposing to allow a tremendous slaughter of cormorants and actually just waste the meat. People will be allowed to shoot right through the summer cottaging season and then leave up to 50 cormorants each a day just to rot. So it will mean shooting in the summer where they shouldn't be shooting near people. It means devastating a species that just made a recovery. And, it means wasting the meat which is just an anathema to most hunters. ...”

We thought this kind of assault on wildlife went out with the Buffalo and Carrier Pigeon hunters. Now we think we are wrong. Many hunters and fisherman and naturalist find this such a retrograde approach, after many decades of widespread government and parental teaching about responsible hunting [no waste] and conservation values [leave the young and females alone]. Ask yourself what values are we teaching our young people with this proposed legislation that allows these birds to be killed and wounded when they are nesting with dependent young ......​and then just left to rot?

If this legislative change goes ahead, the shooting of cormorants can and will take place on Ontario’s lakes where cottagers and permanent residents and children’s summer camps and fisherman and boaters may also be located. To be clear - the government’s proposal means that licensed hunters, either in boats or transporting firearms in cars, will be on and around lakes for almost 70% of all the days of each year - hunting and shooting at cormorants.

And why? The government says it is because some Ontarians want the law changed thinking that cormorants are supposedly eating too many fish that sport fishermen and commercial fishers want... and, that cormorants damage shoreline vegetation where their colonies are located. Scientific studies have repeatedly proven the first reason to be false; cormorants' main diet is small non-native fish such as alewives and round goby and some other small native fish such as perch. Rarely is anything bigger even ever caught by a cormorant. And, for the second reason - yes - cormorants and other colonial waterbirds such as herons alter the environment by breaking small branches off trees to build their nests. So do many other large birds. Trees and shrubs die from guano but the guano also enriches the soil as the environment changes and new trees and shrubs emerge. It is a natural process.

Cormorants were driven almost to extinction in much of North America because of extreme persecution in the previous century. They were almost eradicated in Ontario by the 1970’s, along with other fish eating bird species, due to organochlorine pesticide poisoning. The provincial population of cormorants got down to a very small number of breeding pairs. History tells us that these birds’ populations have been, and can again, be driven to endangerment by such drastic measures as are proposed by the government legislation. And this at a time when their numbers have peaked and are already naturally decreasing!!

A main promoter and supporter of the plan is the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters who say they see more hunting opportunities for their membership - and yet this legislation blithely ignores the OFAH’s own published core principle and pledge of not wasting wildlife. Commercial fishers who think that cormorants are eating ‘their’ fish have been corrected time and time again through scientific studies but still they persist in their view and their support for this legislation.

The Bill 205 legislative proposal is politically driven, cruel, unsportsmanlike and puts the public at risk.