Saw this on the BBC news site.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4199432.stm

Scotty

quote:

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Campaigners claim the killings will threaten the future of the birds, but anglers regard them as "unwelcome competition" said the BBC's Tim Hirsch.

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Hmmm....wonder what side of the fence that journalist is on

quote:

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The charity also claims the government may be in breach of European rules on the protection of wild birds.

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What charity? There is no prior, or subsequent, mention of a charity.

I think we all know whose words they really are, though.

Just the beeb being 'even handed' yet again. I'm surprised they haven't asked the cormorants for a view

The only cormorant I know that can talk is Gracula the one in the Noggin the Nog Sagas. If you are over 50, you will know what i mean.
It was the time when the carp record was 25lb, barbel an exotic species and carbon fibre was an abomination far into the future. Oh and a prediction we would be having matches on the moon.

The charity they refer to is the RSPB.

What they fail to mention is the damage that these birds do to local fish stocks. they can decimate a population and have indeed served to destroy the pyramid structure of river chub and other fish such that we are left with no smaller chub for the future.

The problem really is that great that they will ,not could, do serious long term damage if left unchecked.

They are a sea bird and as such not indiginous to inland britain. There is nothing wrong with the cull from a conservation point of view. This has nothing to do with angling,

"They are big, they arrive en masse, they are cocky and they annoy the hell out of anglers. But to most people they are an interesting bird and to birdwatchers and ornithologists they are fascinating."

That, in a nutshell, is the mentality you are faced with.

It could be argued that the cormorent problem is man made. We insist on filling every reservoir with rainbow trout, every puddle with hoards of carp. These waters end up contain fish populations that are far higher than anything that could be sustained naturally.

The PAC are always saying the abundance of prey determins the abundance of predators, not vice versa. Well its the same with birds, places that are stuffed full of fish atract lots fish eating birds (big surpise), and once they arrive thay can damage nearby natural fish populations.

There used to be about 300 pairs of cormorents roosting on Tay Rail bridge, and smaller roosts (about 15 pairs each) at L. Leven and L. Lintrathen (both rainbow trout fisheries). Now there are non on the Tay bridge, and about 300 pairs between these two lochs. In fact, in scotland, the only time I ever see significant nuimbers of cormorents inland is on commercial trout fisheries.

It's also worth noting that it is *not* all doom and gloom. The Norfolk Broads are reputed to be teaming with silver fish (Charlie Bettel recons there are so many he can't get pike to take his lures), people have been posting on here about bumper catches in the Thames, the Tees is undergoing a major comback as a coarse fishery (yes I know I moaned about someone naming that river a while back).

If shooting cormorents makes people feel better, then I say go ahead. Depite what the RSPB says I think it's extemely unlikely to make the slightest bit of difference. I recon it will be physically impossible to shoot enough cormorents to make the slightest dent in the population. Think of all the effort that put into controlling the numbers of pigeons, rabbits and crows.....any body noticed that these are in short supply.

It would also be politically difficult as the government now has a commitement to preserve biodiversity in our natural habitats. The RSPB are probably playing this card very strongly (I would). Repeated wholesale slaughters of wild birds become very difficult to justify when their aim is to preserve artificially fisheries.

The reason why cormorents are such a 'problem' is that, like most sea birds, they are long lived (20 - 30 years). To keep the population stable, a pair of birds has to produce two chicks over that time. In that time they may actually lay over 100 eggs, so you have a 98% failure rate built into the system.

Shooting adult birds simply means it becomes easier for the survivors to rear more chicks to make up the difference. Read the pike cul leaflet that's often talked about on here, and mentally substitute the word 'cormorent' - much of it applies. The fact that birds are so long lived also means that smashing eggs (often cited as a more humane alternative to culling) will only work if yiou smash a *lot* of eggs for a seriously long time. A lot of studies about egg smashing were done when a colony of kitiwake gulls established itself in the middle of Sunderland for some reason (Late 60s early 70s). They caused mess and nuissance, and there was a huge 'egg smashing' programme. The experinece there is that people stop smashing eggs a long time before it's had any effect on the population. (Council gets fed up of spending money etc etc etc).

If people are not happy with natural fisheries and want to live in a country full of commercials , which is probably the only way people in the most debsely populated partys of the country can fish, then they will have to live with cormorents and ongoing, butv totally inneffective, cormorent culs.

Sorry have to disagree. The problem with the cormorant comes largely from the desimation of common eel fry populations from the HVA virus introduced into Japanese stocks(through cross breeding with infected stocks) which has reduced stock of these by some 98%, not from the overstocking of lakes and fisheries. Thus withouts its natural foodstocks the cormorant has moved into areas where it can find similar quantities of food. And since has found captive populations and flourished. Succesfully breeding year on year on year. thus populations have substantially increased.

Question is, do we want to stop the knock on effect of this here, or allow the cormorant to flourish and further decimate fish populations?

Speaking from personal experience the fish stocks of smaller silver fish have decreased in local rivers while cormorant numbers have increased, draw your own conclusions.

One other question is what impact are the cormorants having on Heron populations? a natural fresh water predator. I always enjoy watching a heron. but with these being highly territorial birds as opposed to flock birds they naturally limit thier numbers. if fish stocks decline from Cormorant over population on thier natural feeding grounds only one conclusion can be drawn.

And you quote the shooting not likely to have any effect on the cormorant population. according to the RSPB there are only 3000 breeding pairs in the country so shooting half of these should have some effect. plus shooting is not only to physically decimate the population but to disturb the flock and stop them from breeding so succesfully.

It is unfortunate but necessary!

Eel Herpes, now that's something I'd never heard of before, but I somhow doubt it's had a huge effect on eel populations, let alone cormorents!!

It's not only the herons JBee, they're also having a detrimental affect on kingfishers in various parts of the country (from a BBC website some time ago). I'd just like to remind the RSPB (of which I was once a Fellow) of the two occasions they readily agreed to a cull of Ruddy Ducks in order to help some Spanish birds....