Two articles on cormorants

[Hamilton Reef]

Feds take aim at fish-eating cormorants

http://www.freep.com/sports/outdoors/outcol10_20020110.htm

Cormorants rarely seen in lakes until recent years

http://www.freep.com/sports/outdoors/oside10_20020110.htm

[stevebrandle]

Our club in the UP got permission to shoot these fish-eaters off any waters on the club. The DNR has a list of registered shooters. The sightings went way down after the killing started. It was hard to watch them gorge themselves on freashly planted trout. :(

[Hamilton Reef]

Here is a letter from MUCC to USFW concerning the cormorant hearing recently held at Mackinaw City on January 8, 2002.

January 14, 2002

Jon Andrew, Chief
Division of Migratory Bird Management
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
4401 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 634
Arlington, VA 22203

Dear Mr. Andrew:

The Michigan United Conservation Clubs (MUCC) is writing to provide comments to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement: Double-crested Cormorant Management plan that was recently released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. MUCC membership is primarily concerned with the impacts of cormorants on our ability to manage a sustainable and usable fishery that provides both recreational and economic value to Michigan's public. MUCC recognizes the ecological value of a cormorant population as part of a healthy Great Lakes ecosystem. We also note that although there may be little scientific evidence that cormorant populations can completely destroy fishery populations, it is clear that continually increasing cormorant populations can create conflicts with human values toward this resource, particularly recreational anglers, commercial fisheries, and aquaculture.

Weighing these two points against MUCC's mission of conserving natural resources and protecting OUR outdoor heritage, MUCC advocates that opportunities should indeed exist to manage cormorant populations. The end goal of cormorant management programs: balancing stable, non-increasing and healthy cormorant populations with a productive, sustainable, and viable fishery which can meet recreational and economic values of citizen's who enjoy and benefit from this fishery resource.

MUCC is therefore supporting the USFWS proposed action contained in the Draft EIS. This action allows Michigan natural resource management agencies the management tools necessary to accomplish stable, non-increasing cormorant populations and to manage these bird populations in consistency with our state's fishery management objectives. The proposed option would allow for depredation of cormorants in sufficient biologically determined numbers as to accomplish these management goals.

MUCC continues to remain an outspoken supporter of hunting and the shooting sports, but will not advocate an option where hunting alone is the only mechanism for cormorant removals. From purely a biological management perspective, the concern here is that an option speaking to hunting alone would likely not create enough reduction in the population to meet a stable, non-increasing goal for cormorant numbers. It would be reasonable to expect that reductions through hunting alone could actually biologically improve cormorant populations through both increasing individual bird health and reproductive rates - this being counterproductive to any goals controlling the growth of a cormorant population. Furthermore, the recreational benefits of a cormorant hunting season seem to be limited as cormorants offer little recreational or consumptive value through hunting, and therefore would not likely be a highly sought after game bird. It is also worthwhile to note that the notoriety of cormorants as fish eating birds alone creates a real risk of a bounty style hunting where birds are exterminated at the cost of significant damage to the public image of our hunting traditions, ethics, and values.

Thank you for allowing MUCC to provide comments on the Draft EIS and we look forward to working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to develop a plan for cormorant management.

Sincerely, Dennis Fox, Policy Director