Cormorant controls are measured means of breaking up the parties
http://www.mlive.com/news/bctimes/in...490.xml&coll=4
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
When thousands of double-crested cormorants return to Michigan waters this spring after a winter on the Gulf Coast, many may encounter an unwelcoming committee.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is working with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources this year to control an explosion of cormorants nesting on islands in and around Lake Huron's Thunder Bay.
It's a reasonable response to the colonies of cormorants that have nested on the islands near Alpena.
Some in that town blame the cormorants for the decline in the local brown trout fishery.
For them, the state and federal plans to put a lid on cormorant numbers is too little, too late to deal with what some consider no better than a rat with wings.
The ugly brutes are destroying the fishing in Lake Huron, some say.
Sure, after years of study, there's little doubt that cormorants do have an impact on fish populations.
But the exact effect is still murky.
Up in the Les Cheneaux Islands, about 16,000 cormorants preyed on alewives, a nonnative bait fish, and perch.
Their large colonies denuded islands with the bird's acidic droppings.
Clearly, something had to be done.
State and federal officials enlisted and oversaw volunteers who oiled eggs, harassed the birds and shot dozens.
They did not wipe out the birds.
Because, like it or not, cormorants belong in the Great Lakes. They moved into the lakes from the prairies around 1913. Pollution of the lakes drove their numbers down to the point where only 89 nesting pairs were counted in all of the Great Lakes in 1970.
Following years of pollution controls, though, cormorants rebounded in the cleaner waters. About 110,000 nesting pairs live in the lakes today.
This is an environmental success story.
Even if the double-crested cormorants are a nuisance in some spots.
When that's the case, we have a new state and federal agreement to deal with the migratory birds.
Everyone should give this plan time to work. A resolution in the Michigan Senate calling for the harshest possible measures to control cormorants is premature.
And fishermen should not take matters into their own hands. Killing federally protected waterfowl without the proper permits is a crime.
Just as the wholesale slaughter of 500 cormorants in 2000 on Saginaw Bay's Little Charity Island was an outrage. Nobody was ever caught in that criminal act.
That rogue population control measure might have been off the mark, anyway.
Although cormorants fly and fish all over Saginaw Bay, their presence doesn't appear to have hurt the walleye fishing, DNR officials say.
In fact, with the alewife population down, walleyes and other game fish are thriving here, state officials have said.
So, the jury's still out on whether cormorants are good guys or bad neighbors.
Depending on the circumstances, it's possibly a little bit of both.
And now, where their gatherings get out of hand, such Thunder Bay, we've got a measured means of breaking up their parties.
Under the watchful eyes of state and federal wildlife experts.
, like the salmon after the eggs are milked out. Might even make a little off the da*n things
I mean after all, cats like fish and birds to eat, its like a combo meal
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