AR-News: (U.S.) twine keeps cormorants from fish

[Mary Finelli]

WATER TURKEYS FOILED BY TWINE
Agricultural Research, Science Update; Andrew A. Radomski, January 2004
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/jan04/sci0104.htm


Researchers have tested a low-tech solution to the problem of poaching by 
double-crested cormorants, often called water turkeys. These migratory 
diving birds winter in the Delta region, where they voraciously feed on 
channel catfish fingerlings and any other fish they can swallow. Each one 
eats up to a pound and a half a day.

Seeking an inexpensive, easily set up, environmentally benign way to 
discourage this predation, researchers installed twine barriers across test 
ponds. It took about 3 hours for a three-person team to string a 15-acre 
pond, placing posts at 100-foot intervals, stretching the twine across the 
width of the pond, and maintaining the string 3 feet above the water in the 
middle of it.

Using four ponds at each of six privately owned catfish farms, only 2.3 
cormorants per hour, on average, landed on ponds where the twine was used, 
compared to 10.6 birds on unstrung ponds. Seeing fewer birds on twined ponds 
apparently discouraged others from attempting to land.

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