According to Bird Studies…

According to Bird Studies Canada, “the proposed bag limit of 50 Double-crested Cormorants per day per hunter with no possession limit over a nine and a half month open season is exceptionally high, unsustainable, and without precedent under the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act for its failure to address the need for population sustainability.”
• This proposal will set a precedent whereby, for the first time ever in the history of Canadian game management, it will be legal to allow game to be wasted.
• Hunters will be allowed to shoot from stationary boats in cottage country, even during the height of summer tourism.
• There is no funding to monitor the killing. Entire breeding colonies of cormorants and co-inhabiting species such as Great Blue Herons, Egrets and, in the north, American White Pelicans, could be eliminated.
• Since both parents care for young, untold thousands of nestlings will die of thirst, malnutrition, hypothermia and predation.
• This proposal discredits decades of understanding basic ecology and the importance of apex predators to biodiversity.
• Protected colonies such as the one at Tommy Thompson Park, which are humanely and effectively managed on science-based principles, will face increased pressure.
• According to the Canadian Wildlife Service, cormorants feed primarily on small, largely non-commercial, shallow-water fish (e.g., non-native rainbow smelt and alewife). Only a small percentage of their diet consists of “sport fish,” which is one of the excuses given for the hunt.

Thank you.
A concerned citizen of Ontario.