I’ve resided on Balsam lake…

I’ve resided on Balsam lake for the past 5 summers. Initially the cormorant population appeared to be centred around one small island called Hogg Island. They have absolutely destroyed a little island off to the side of this island but it was sort of interesting to watch these birds at the time.

Since then the cormorant population has grown immensely. We were boating along the south end of Balsam this past summer and came across two huge flights of cormorants. I did not count them but I would suggest in the range of 40 to 50 in each flight. The following week a large flight landed in North Bay (Balsam Lake). A local was out on their wave runner trying to scare them off. He was successful.

The concerns are:
- that the population of the cormorant has grown exponentially and if not curbed it will continue to climb, and
- that continual growth will not bode well for the fish population, and other small islands in the area due to the destruction of vegetation.

I totally support a controlled hunt of the cormorant, as it appears that it has no predators to manage the continued population growth.