This is a very bad bill. In…

This is a very bad bill.

In my youth I loved nothing better than duck and grouse hunting: please realize that I appreciate and understand hunting culture. However, this bill goes against so many of the principles of ethical hunting. It is inviting people to be vigilante killers, not hunters. They may slaughter dozens of cormorants every day, not eat them, and "allow them to spoil".

Good wildlife management policies are evidence-based. It is bad management to allow such actions without first consulting the expert scientists who are familiar with the bird and its place in aquatic ecosystems. There is no evidence that the Ministry has done this, and there is also no evidence that the Anglers and Hunters, who have lobbied for this, have undertaken any conclusive studies of their own. There is no evidence presented that this bill will have its desired effects. It is questionable whether cormorants have any appreciable effect on the populations of the species of fish that anglers are after.

I request a copy of the correspondence, data, studies, and analyses that this proposed bill is based on. If you do not respond, I will take this to mean that the evidence is not there, and the Ministry has abandoned its responsibilities toward the public good.