This is a terrible backwards…

This is a terrible backwards idea, a political response to one pushed forward by a small group of radical fishermen supported by special interest groups. To allow this would not only hurt and possibly wipe out the cormorant species, but could also result in the killing of other species through mistaken identity.
Allowing the wanton destruction of these birds will result in extreme cruelty to the adults as well as the nesting babies. The mass killing of cormorants will damage the environment and disrupt natural ecosystem processes.
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.
There is no substantive body of scientific evidence supporting their position.
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.