I am shocked and appalled…

I am shocked and appalled that this proposal has been put forward and an very much against it.

The double-crested cormorant is a native species in Ontario and thus should not be subjected to action that has the potential to extirpate it. This proposal is severely flawed on the basis of several ecological perspectives.
1. There is BSC data that suggests recent population declines. Thus, virtually unlimited hunting is ill-advised
2. The presumption that because the species is currently “common” it cannot be extirpated is wrong. One glance back to what happened with passenger pigeons tells us this is an incorrect assumption.
3. This species tends to flock and thus is particularly sensitive to extirpation local population by local population.
4. Under this proposal I and every other person in Ontario could kill 50 cormorants per day for 292 days of the year. That is, I could kill 14,600 birds. If even a small proportion of Ontario’s human population does this the cormorant population impact would be catastrophic. This kind of unregulated hunting is ludicrous! I have observed situations where people have pursued fishing by limiting- out daily so this scenario is certainly possible with cormorants especially as there would be no possession limit nor the moral imperative to consume what is taken. So easy to just go out and target practice on cormorants every day! Shameful!

There are also several ethical or moral reasons why this proposal is misguided.
4. It is disgusting that under this proposal cormorants could be used for target practice. I had thought that part of a hunting ethic was to eat/use what is killed and to not waste an animal. This proposal allows killed cormorants to be completely wasted and encourages small-minded target practice on the animals. I find it disgusting to encourage the treatment of these living birds as no more than tin cans for entertainment.
5. It is ethically wrong to simply decide that this species is “annoying” (eg it’s poop ruins my dock/boat/view/smells) and thus must be eliminated. What is “annoying” is undefinable because it is personal and is no way to “manage” a provincial natural resource.
6. Cormorants are a natural element of the Ontario ecosystem. If we have messed up the ecosystem so badly that the species appears to be out of balance, that’s on us not the birds. We need to just suck it up and co-exist with them whether we’re happy about it or not. If we’ve been this bad at managing fish stocks, our human population and cormorant habitat to date we are certainly not capable of fixing it by killing them off.