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.

I am appalled that this proposal is even being considered. I am vehemently against this proposal; and hope that you do the right thing, and abolish it rather than move forward and alter these unsustainable guidelines. We need to protect our wildlife for generations to come. We already have numerous species that have become extinct, please do not enable the opportunity for more species, including cohabitation species, to be added to this extinction list. Shame on you all for even suggesting this proposal!