As a avid hunter and…

As a avid hunter and wildlife management professional, I commend the Ontario government for acknowledging there is an over-abundance of DCC in Ontario and for considering hunters as a useful tool to manage their population.

That said, I believe this proposal opens hunters up to ridicule from the anti-hunting and non-hunting communities. To have a large “bag limit” such as 50 can only be sensationalized by the press and anti-hunting community. I read one op-ed from a Toronto paper where the author pointed out how many cormorants a hunter could harvest in a season; a sensational number around 14,000. That is just unattainable. I would argue that a wildlife management professional hired exclusively to cull cormorants would have a very difficult time killing that many cormorants in a year.
Cormorants are not a game species and are not fit for consumption. Cormorants will be harvested opportunistically by hunters while waterfowling, and there are no calls, decoys, or other hunting aids that will help attract cormorants to hunters. With that being said, as someone who spends an inordinate amount of time waterfowling in and around areas cormorants frequent, I don’t feel that I would be able to harvest but a dozen or two annually by shooting them opportunistically.

While this proposal is a step in the right direction, I feel that a much better move would be to simply de-list cormorants. That would mean there were no seasons or bag limits, but for all intents and purposes, such a move would fulfill the crux of the proposal as it is being laid out. The upside here is that hunters wouldn’t bear the scorn of others when this proposal is brought up in the press.

Most people will not be informed enough to know the ins and outs of the situation, and I too, would think that 50 sounded like a big number.
Again, I am recommending that the province de-list cormorants from the protected list.

Failing my suggestion, I would support the proposal as it is laid out.