AR-News: (CA) Shooting cormorants over dead trees rasises suspicions about Liberal motives...

[Barry Kent MacKay]

Mar. 23, 2004. 01:00 AM

The Toronto Star

Tree story just doesn't fly
Shooting cormorants over dead trees raises suspicions about Liberal motives
THOMAS WALKOM

Last fall, the provincial Conservatives mockingly labelled Dalton McGuinty
an "evil, reptilian kitten-eater from another planet." They should have
called him a double-crested cormorant killer from Presqu'ile Provincial
Park. As things turned out, that might have been more apt.
 
That's because the Ontario Premier and his Natural Resources Minister David
Ramsay are setting out to authorize the shooting of up to 6,893
double-breasted cormorants currently preparing to nest at the Lake Ontario
park near Trenton. 

The birds' alleged crime? They often kill the trees in which they nest.
Their real crime? They've made enemies in the lucrative sport fishing
industry.
 
The saga of the double-breasted cormorant is a tale for our times. It is a
story of money versus nature and of humankind's inability to tolerate any
other species that it finds remotely bothersome. 

It is also a story of meddling in the name of wildlife management and of the
casual way in which we can turn on an animal that we've already driven once
to near-extinction. 

Cormorants don't have many allies in the human world. They are big and not
particularly cute. They hang around in gangs and, like all birds, defecate a
lot. They make noise and when they take over a tree for nesting they may,
over time, kill it. 

But what really irks their human critics is that they eat fish. 
Fishermen have long treated cormorants as competitors. In 1946, Ontario
fishermen persuaded the provincial government to declare war on cormorants
by destroying their eggs. Anglers also organized annual illegal cormorant
shoots. 

That went on for 20 years. But as the federal government's Canadian Wildlife
Service recounts in its brief history of the cormorant, the measures didn't
work. 

Eventually, pesticides did what the fishermen couldn't. Toxic chemicals such
as DDT weakened cormorant eggs to such an extent that, by the early '70s,
the bird had been almost wiped out from the Great Lakes. 

A North American ban on DDT plus other anti-pollution measures sparked an
amazing comeback for the cormorant. Its population exploded, particularly in
Lakes Ontario and Huron. 

But as the cormorant bounced back, so did its enemies. 

"More than 350,000 of these birds invade the Great Lakes basin each year,"
writes the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters on its website. "Over
the course of their stay ... these voracious birds consume an average of a
pound of fish a day. 

"The net effect is over 42 million pounds of fish consumed by cormorants
each year." 

That sounds like a lot. But as the Canadian Wildlife Service points out, it
is small relative to the number of fish in the Great Lakes. 

Indeed, Ottawa calculates that cormorants consume less than half a per cent
of so-called prey fish in the Great Lakes — the smaller fish that the big
sport fish, such as trout or salmon, like to eat. 

As for the sport fish themselves, the wildlife service says cormorants are
remarkably abstemious. Trout and salmon minnows make up less than 2 per cent
of the typical cormorant's diet. 

The wildlife service says there is evidence that cormorants gobble up perch
and bass in some locales. But, it warns that not enough research has been
done to be sure. 

Technically, the Ontario government isn't waging war on the Presqu'ile
cormorants just to placate fishermen (although it acknowledges that its
plans are consistent with this aim). Technically, it is trying to save
trees. 

And it is true that, thanks to the corrosive nature of their feces,
cormorants may eventually kill the very trees in which they nest. The
government says it wants to protect these trees so other big waterfowl, such
as the great blue heron, can use them. 

It's a good argument but for one thing: Over time, great blue herons, too,
kill the trees in which they nest. 

In any case, as the Canadian Wildlife Service points out, the real threat to
great blue herons doesn't come from cormorants destroying trees. It comes
from humans destroying trees. 

The Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters is thrilled at Ramsay's plans
to shoot the Presqu'ile cormorants. In fact it says it wants the kill area
expanded "in order to properly address the menace." 

Other naturalist groups, including the Peaceful Parks Coalition, which
lobbies against hunting in parks, are defiantly opposed. 

"All creatures play a key role in the balance of nature," says naturalist
and former Star columnist Barry Kent Mackay. "You can't pick and choose ...
which ones are shot dead." 

Personally, I like trees as much as the next guy. But I suspect that this
shooting scheme has little to do with protecting the vegetation of
Presqu'ile Park and more to do with appeasing the sporting lobby — already
irked by McGuinty's decision not to reintroduce the spring bear hunt. 
Besides, any bird that has managed to survive so many attempts to wipe it
out deserves a break. 
________________________

Barry Kent MacKay
Canadian office,
ANIMAL PROTECTION INSTITUTE 
www.api4animals.org