MANITOULIN—The province is considering opening a season on double crested cormorants and has opened a commentary period until January 3 (comments opened on the government site on November 19, the January 3 date allows for 45 days for the public to weigh in).
The double breasted cormorant, that’s phalacrocorax auritus to the Latin inclined, is considered by many who fish commercially and for sport as public enemy number one, with plenty of shoreline residents on the Great Lakes joining the outcry against the somewhat less than photogenic birds. But those on the conservation and birder sides of the ledger are voicing concern that the proposed government legislation will go too far.
Cormorants were relatively rare if not unknown in the Great Lakes for much of the 20th Century, but by the 1990s the birds were spreading across the region and multiplying exponentially. At first, the recovery of the cormorants was seen as a good news story as bird populations had been heavily suppressed by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Eventually, however, cormorant numbers had escalated to the point where they were causing significant damage to the ecology of islands and shorelines, with a concurrent deleterious impact on property values.
The feces and vomit of the cormorant is not only very unpleasant to humans, it is extremely toxic to plant life. Cormorant colonies were destroying the trees in which the birds were nesting. The hew and cry against the birds has united both those whose livelihoods come from the water and those who enjoy waterborne recreation, both urban and rural.
The regulatory changes being proposed by the government are to create an open hunting season from March 15 to December 31 each year across the province for double-crested cormorants beginning in 2019.
The government proposes to list the double-crested cormorant as a game bird. Hunters taking aim at the birds would still be required to have an outdoors card and a small game licence to hunt the birds, regulations similar to those governing the hunting of other species of game birds. The new regulations would create an exemption allowing small game licences to be valid for double-crested cormorant hunting in Central and Northern Ontario from June 16 to August 31 each year.
The proposed regulations would also establish a bag limit of 50 cormorants per day with no possession limit. It is this somewhat generous limit that is raising the ire of ornithologists and ecologists, who point out that this would allow a hunter to theoretically cull some 14,000 birds in a single season. “The government’s numbers are too high,” asserted Jason Weir, an associate professor of biology at the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus in a CBC interview. Although Mr. Weir agrees that cormorant numbers do need to be controlled, but with an open season that stretches not only throughout the cormorants’ breeding season but also runs through the breeding season of other bird species that tend to live and breed in the same locations, thus disturbing their populations dangerously as well.
The proposed regulations set out the shotgun and shot size requirements, as well as the type of shot that is consistent with migratory bird hunting regulations that are currently outlined in the federal Migratory Birds Regulations. This effectively means the use of shotguns that are not larger than 10 gauge, that cannot hold more than three shells and that use non-toxic shot. So even when it comes to cormorants, lead shot is still a no-go for hunting.
The new regulations would also allow hunting of cormorants from a stationary motorboat.
Further, considering that cormorants are considered unpalatable to nearly all of those with palates that can taste, the new regulations depart from other strictures contained in the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act dealing with the hunting of migratory birds or other animals in that the meat of cormorants can be allowed to spoil. Hunters would still be required to retrieve and dispose of the carcass.
The government will implement a cormorant monitoring program that will assess the impacts of the hunting season on population status and trends allowing the government to adjust the season and regulations if required.
Reaction from local fish and games club members has been positive, if somewhat sceptical that it will make a significant impact. Bill Strain, of the Little Current Fish and Game Club said, “I’ll be surprised if it ever happens, but I sure hope it does.”
Still Mr. Strain said the proposal is good news. “The numbers of cormorants around here seem to be down, but they are still there. I think they go up to the rivers in the north then come back to areas like ours in August, and you will see four or five flocks of 20-50 birds, and out toward areas like Heywood Island,” he said. “Once they exhaust a food source in one area they move on.”
Commercial fisherman Drew Purvis of Purvis Fishery in Silver Water agreed. “It is good news. They (cormorants) have already eaten everything it seems.” Mr. Purvis pointed out his father, George, is on the Great Lakes Fishery Commission which has been pushing for cormorant controls for over a decade. “It should be good for fishing populations in general.”
Although studies do not support the anecdotal fingering of cormorants as the soul culprit in declining fish stocks in the Great Lakes as maintained by proponents of the commercial and sports fisheries, and although the burgeoning numbers of the cormorant populations have by all accounts somewhat abated in recent years, their impact on the environment has raised sufficient alarms in government ranks to at least propose taking action.
Despite the opposing views on the proposed regulations, many in the sports fishing industry point out that the new regulations will have no impact on the cormorant populations that are impacting urban and park environments as hunters will not be allowed to hunt in those areas even if the governments proposals are fully implemented.
