It has come to my attention…

It has come to my attention that the Premier has a proposal in the works to allow hunters to shoot and kill cormorants between March and December when they are nesting. This is a horrible decision which goes against all science based studies and more than a century's worth of evolution and effective wildlife management. Study after study has demonstrated that double-crested cormorants do not seriously affect fish stocks. They mostly eat species of fish of no commercial value and not favoured by sports anglers. I call for this proposal to be rejected for the following reasons:

1. 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.

2. The presence of cormorants benefits other colonial water birds, such as herons, egrets and pelicans, all of which are stable or growing where cormorants are found.

3. 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.

4. 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. It will leave thousands of baby birds to die of hypothermia, thirst, or starvation, a cruelty that should be illegal.

5. 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.

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

7. The return of cormorants, a native wildlife species, to the Great Lakes Basin is part of a natural process.

8. Cormorants are not overabundant in the Great Lakes. In fact, their numbers are modest, now stabilized and are dropping in many areas.

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

10. The number of trees damaged or destroyed in colonial waterbird colonies across the province is miniscule and wouldn’t even equal the number of trees in a single modestly-sized woodlot.

11. Only a small number of islands (less than 3%) and peninsula sites are available for cormorants and other colonial waterbirds to nest on.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. It would create health and environmental hazards from the large number of rotting birds.

15. It will result in increased gun use and subsequent disturbance, particularly in cottage country during family vacation time.

16. 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, overfishing and a broad range of other issues.