Reasons Why I Am Opposed to…

Reasons Why I Am Opposed to the Cormorant Hunting Proposal

With a hunting season extending from 15 March to 31 December, the bill would allow hunting precisely during the regular breeding season of cormorants, approximately April - July. This would include the time when cormorants have young in the nest and when those young are totally dependent upon constant care from their parents. The young of adult cormorants, who would be shot, would die from exposure and/or starvation. No other "game" bird is hunted during its breeding season or on its breeding colonies or while tending its nests.

Cormorants seldom nest alone, by themselves, in single species colonies. In Ontario, they almost always nest with one or more of the following groups of colonial water birds: gulls, terns herons, egrets and pelicans. These species are protected by federal migratory bird legislation or provincial legislation.
Discharging shotguns at or near cormorant nesting colonies, including shooting at flying birds and shooting adults on their nests – both in trees and on the ground, would be an enormous disturbance to all of these co-habiting species. It is almost a certainty that these protected species will be accidentally killed or will abandon their nests due to disturbance or associate incidental predation and consequently their young would also die. Thus, shooting cormorants on their nesting colony and causing disturbance (or injury or death) to other nearby or interspersed nesting colonial water birds (which would be inevitable) would be a violation of the Migratory Bird Convention Act. This would put provincially licensed cormorant hunters at risk of legal prosecution on violation of federal migratory bird statutes.

If management is deemed necessary to restrict colony expansion at specific sites and limit further damage to trees, less intrusive/non-intrusive methods have proven extremely effective and do not harm protected species nesting in, or adjacent to colonies.
Methods which do not require killing hatched birds include: human presence during nest site selection and post-breeding dispersal, egg oiling, provision of ground nesting materials and destroying nests prior to egg-laying. Egg oiling is a very effective means to limit cormorant productivity and has already been used to great success on some ground-nesting cormorant colonies on the Great Lakes.

The proposed daily bag limit of 50 birds with no possession limit is essentially unenforceable. At the end of a full week, a determined hunter could legally shoot 350 cormorants. What is less certain is how many would be retrieved due to the location of hunting (some might fall into crotches of tree or tangled vegetation) or because of their weight, or because of shooting on open water (some might be lost underwater, etc.). Unretrieved birds would jeopardize a hunter's claim to have stayed within the daily limit, if confronted by a conservation officer requiring proof.

In conclusion, I urge the Ontario Government to withdraw the proposal. If a cormorant management strategy is required, it should be founded on strong science and should not impact protected species. Apart from any other consideration, the danger to others, who also use the waterways, should be of foremost concern.