EdB
03-19-2007, 07:47 PM
http://www.ludingtondailynews.com/news.php?story_id=35365
Cormorant controls in the works
BRIAN MULHERIN - DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Cormorants flying into Lake Michigan waters off Mason County won’t find a “Welcome” mat this year.
If Consumers Energy agrees to it, federal wildlife technicians will shoot about 200 adult birds and oil the eggs on a double-crested cormorant colony of almost 500 nests at a breakwall offshore from the Consumers Pumped Storage Plant this spring.
The egg-oiling was agreed to by a team comprised of Michigan Department of Natural Resources biologists from wildlife and fisheries divisions. The Lake Michigan Basin Team also agreed to kill 10 percent of the adult population of the colony by lethal shooting.
DNR Fisheries Biologist Supervisor Tom Rozich said the exact number of birds to be shot is still “up in the air,” as is a potential harassment program. Rozich has repeatedly asked that the entire colony on the man-made barrier reef, which he calls an “unnatural situation,” be wiped out.
“While plans have not been finalized with exactly what’s going to happen in the Ludington Area, the district (USDA) Wildlife Services guy Anthony Duffiney is going to call me, and we’re going to talk about plans for what they’re going to do in Ludington,” Rozich said.
“Oiling is a done deal,” Rozich added. “Oiling will be done.”
Rozich said he’s hoping to organize at least some harassment of birds that attempt to prey upon the DNR’s plant of brown trout in the Pere Marquette Lake channel. The DNR has planted 18,000-24,000 brown trout in the channel since 1998 and planted smaller numbers for many years before that.
“(For) the harassment program, to protect primarily our brown trout stocking program, we will meet with (the Ludington Area Charterboat Association) and see if we can’t find a group to do that,” Rozich said.
LACA has asked the colony be controlled in some way for the last several years as the brown trout population has plummeted in spite of repeated stockings. The birds were observed eating planted brown trout in 2002. Since then, the DNR has tried to stock the fish earlier in the year, before the cormorants arrive in great numbers. But the brown trout harvest has continued to fall.
Rozich visited the colony last year and found 486 nests and estimated a population of 2,000 adult birds lives on the reef about 150 days a year.
“The bottom line is we will do control there with at least a 10 percent reduction in the adult population,” Rozich said.
Cormorant controls in the works
BRIAN MULHERIN - DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Cormorants flying into Lake Michigan waters off Mason County won’t find a “Welcome” mat this year.
If Consumers Energy agrees to it, federal wildlife technicians will shoot about 200 adult birds and oil the eggs on a double-crested cormorant colony of almost 500 nests at a breakwall offshore from the Consumers Pumped Storage Plant this spring.
The egg-oiling was agreed to by a team comprised of Michigan Department of Natural Resources biologists from wildlife and fisheries divisions. The Lake Michigan Basin Team also agreed to kill 10 percent of the adult population of the colony by lethal shooting.
DNR Fisheries Biologist Supervisor Tom Rozich said the exact number of birds to be shot is still “up in the air,” as is a potential harassment program. Rozich has repeatedly asked that the entire colony on the man-made barrier reef, which he calls an “unnatural situation,” be wiped out.
“While plans have not been finalized with exactly what’s going to happen in the Ludington Area, the district (USDA) Wildlife Services guy Anthony Duffiney is going to call me, and we’re going to talk about plans for what they’re going to do in Ludington,” Rozich said.
“Oiling is a done deal,” Rozich added. “Oiling will be done.”
Rozich said he’s hoping to organize at least some harassment of birds that attempt to prey upon the DNR’s plant of brown trout in the Pere Marquette Lake channel. The DNR has planted 18,000-24,000 brown trout in the channel since 1998 and planted smaller numbers for many years before that.
“(For) the harassment program, to protect primarily our brown trout stocking program, we will meet with (the Ludington Area Charterboat Association) and see if we can’t find a group to do that,” Rozich said.
LACA has asked the colony be controlled in some way for the last several years as the brown trout population has plummeted in spite of repeated stockings. The birds were observed eating planted brown trout in 2002. Since then, the DNR has tried to stock the fish earlier in the year, before the cormorants arrive in great numbers. But the brown trout harvest has continued to fall.
Rozich visited the colony last year and found 486 nests and estimated a population of 2,000 adult birds lives on the reef about 150 days a year.
“The bottom line is we will do control there with at least a 10 percent reduction in the adult population,” Rozich said.