Hunting in our society is a…

Hunting in our society is a sport that is guided by a code of conduct — for instance, that it does not occur at a time of year when young could be left abandoned to starve or be preyed upon (or, as is supposedly the case in the spring bear hunt, precautions are taken to avoid killing a mother that has cubs). There’s the concept of fair chase — that the animal has a reasonable chance of escape. And an ethical hunter fully uses the animal, leaving nothing to waste.

The Conservatives’ plan for double-crested cormorants is anything but ethical. It will allow hunting of cormorants during breeding season — shooting birds while they are sitting on eggs or tending to chicks — and will suspend a provision of the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act that prohibits leaving meat to spoil.

Oscar Wilde’s quip about a fox hunt, “the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable,” is an apt description of this proposal — except, this is not a hunt, there is no pursuit when it comes to killing birds on the nest. This is just cruel, and pointless — the government’s own posting on the Environmental Registry of Ontario states that the Great Lakes population of double-crested cormorants has stabilized or declined slightly.