To the Ontario government, I…

To the Ontario government,

I oppose the proposal to establish a hunting season for double-crested cormorants. While cormorants appear to be a nuisance to some landowners, the proposed solution is extreme. This bird population has already undergone significant declines and has had to rebound one before. The extremely high bag limit puts their populations at risk and seems wildly disproportionate to the damage that they currently cause. This is particularly stark as this regulation would allow hunting during the breeding season, unlike any other game bird, and allow spoilage. The proposed hunt is simply a license to slaughter needlessly, particularly when there are other methods of deterring cormorants which have been proven to be effective. Moreover the quantities allowed could potentially wipe out the Great Lakes population of cormorants entirely.

All scientific evidence flies in opposition to this policy. Cormorants are not significantly problematic to sport fishers, nor do they cause problems to other wildlife. Scientific monitoring should already be in place before any policy decisions such as this are made, not after.

Reject this proposal and indeed, if it is necessary to control the cormorant population, establish a better strategy with decisions based off of evidence.