Cormorant cull 'threatens future'

[Paul Boote]

Anglersvoice:

PB

I think it is inevitable that our Angling will change in the next decade.

 

The arguments we have seen on other fourms give me little hope that we can just whip out a tube of "angling glue" and make all anglers pull together.

 

Kev.

I do hope so, Kev. If you knew the grief that I have had from certain folk in recent years for so much as daring to (gently) suggest the need now for modest change, increasing unity, greater inclusion etc in Angling...

[Anglersvoice]

I won't stop glueing.. until all my fingers are stuck and I have a model aircraft up my left nostril..

 

AND even then.. I'll still phone a friend or two.

[Paul Boote]

Thought-provoking press release from the British Trust for Ornithology linked below. Certainly a more balanced response than that of the RSPB.

 

 

http://www.bto.org/news/news2005/july-aug/...s_carefully.htm

[slodger]

Thought provoking indeed Paul.

 

I like to think that I'm an angler largely because of the interaction with nature and the countryside that naturally follows. I've often felt that our attitudes towards the Cormorant are somewhat myopic. They run perilously close at times to the train of thought that bought numbers of our resident raptor populations to the brink of extinction in the last century.

 

The comparison in the report between numbers of the indigenous 'Carbo' species of Cormorant, and our Barn Owl and Osprey populations, is something that warrants serious consideration. After all, if the displaced colonies of the less welcome 'Sinensis' species didn't represent the threat that they clearly do to our native silver fish, wouldn't most of us be proclaiming the Cormorant as a truly magnificent bird?

 

What a pity it is that identification between the two separate species is so difficult. Little wonder also, that the various bird-orientated groups see the idea of culls in such a different light to us.

 

I think this report hilights the complex nature of the Cormorant problem. It seems, to some degree, that we are faced with choosing between saving our native fish, and saving our good name with many of the conservationist groups. Not an easy choice for angling to make, at least not without courting the risk of having our place in the countryside held up to unwelcome scrutiny from the general public.

 

[ 02. September 2005, 04:02 PM: Message edited by: slodger ]

[Paul Boote]

slodger:

Thought provoking indeed Paul.

 

I like to think that I'm an angler largely because of the interaction with nature and the countryside that naturally follows. I've often felt that our attitudes towards the Cormorant are somewhat myopic. They run perilously close at times to the train of thought that bought numbers of our resident raptor populations to the brink of extinction in the last century.

 

The comparison in the report between numbers of the indigenous 'Carbo' species of Cormorant, and our Barn Owl and Osprey populations, is something that warrants serious consideration. After all, if the displaced colonies of the less welcome 'Sinensis' species didn't represent the threat that they clearly do to our native silver fish, wouldn't most of us be proclaiming the Cormorant as a truly magnificent bird?

 

What a pity it is that identification between the two separate species is so difficult. Little wonder also, that the various bird-orientated groups see the idea of culls in such a different light to us.

 

I think this report hilights the complex nature of the Cormorant problem. It seems, to some degree, that we are faced with choosing between saving our native fish, and saving our good name with many of the conservationist groups. Not an easy choice for angling to make, at least not without courting the risk of having our place in the countryside held up to unwelcome scrutiny from the general public.

Good stuff, slodge'.

 

Some of our ertswhile 'friends' see it rather differently, however (great entertainment value, the Times Letters page, I always thought ... though now rather superceded, in terms of sheer gaga-ness, by the Telegraph)...

 

 

Letter to the Times, September 05, 2005

 

Cormorant cull

 

From Mr Geoff Norris

 

 

 

Sir, It seems strange that the powers that be should ban the hunting of foxes, which are classified as vermin, but happily support the slaughter of cormorants, whose only crime is to interfere with a sport which many would regard as more cruel than foxhunting.

 

Perhaps cormorants should get a few tips on lobbying from the foxes if they are to influence a Labour Party which responds to spin rather than reason.

 

 

GEOFFREY NORRIS

Woking, Surrey

[watatoad]

I wonder if any of the original posters to this old forum thread have changed their viewpoint in any way shape or form.