I am strongly opposed to…

I am strongly opposed to this change for the following reasons:

(1) listing the double-crested cormorant as a "game bird" is a travesty, as no one who hunts them will want to eat them. Any species that is a game bird should be one that people want to eat.

(2) Parks and landowners are already allowed to shoot cormorants on their own property if the birds are damaging the local environment. For example, a cormorant cull is already in place on Middle Island by Parks Canada. Therefore no change in the rules is needed if the motivation is to prevent the birds from doing damage.

(3) If cormorant numbers need to be reduced, the best way to do it is through systematic efforts by professionals, such as the decade-long cull on Middle Island. Random shooting by members of the public is not efficient and is unlikely to be effective in the long run.

(4) Hunting cormorants is likely to prove more of a public nuisance than the birds themselves. Since hunters will not want to eat the birds, they will have little incentive to retrieve the bodies and so we will have piles of rotting cormorant corpses instead of smaller amounts of bird droppings.

Please do not open a hunting season for double-crested cormorants.