*Please publish this comment…

*Please publish this comment. It is coming from an organization and we have no problem with the government sharing our input!

RE: EBR Registry Number: 013-4124
(Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry Proposal to establish a hunting season for double-crested cormorants in Ontario)

Dear Madam/Sir,
Please accept this submission as Environment Hamilton’s formal comments on the Ministry of Natural Resources & Forestry’s policy proposal to establish a hunting season for double-crested cormorants in Ontario. We do not support the call to establish a hunting season. Our views are based partly on our location in Hamilton where we are active with efforts to remediate the Hamilton Harbour watershed.

We have also learned more about the current situation with cormorants in Ontario from Dr. James Quinn, a professor of Biology at McMaster University who studies birds – including cormorants. Dr. Quinn has shared three central concerns with us to support his position that this policy is problematic:

1. Allowing hunting from motorboats during breeding season will disturb other colonial nesting birds that are protected under the Migratory Birds Act.
2. Cormorant populations in Ontario have stabilized and complaints from fishers that they are depleting fish population are unsubstantiated.
3. By feeding on round gobies, a recent invasive exotic to the Great Lakes, cormorants are helping to reduce negative impacts on some native species in the Great Lakes.

For these reasons, we do not support the proposal to allow cormorants to be designated a game bird so that hunters can shoot and bag up to fifty cormorants per day.

Yours truly,
Lynda M. Lukasik, PhD
Executive Director
Environment Hamilton
TEL: (905) 549-0900