Goosander

[Peter M]

Just finished reading George Mellys book Hooked, which I can really recommend. In the book he mentions the problem of cormorants but gives more time to bemoaning the influence of the Goosander. He says they are as much of a problem as cormorants. To be frank I was unaware of this birds adverse affect on our fisheries. The bird book I consulted says they are a shy bird often fleeing at the sight of humans but like large lakes and reservoirs as well as upland rivers. Is this why I was so ignorant as to the problem. Does anyone have any experience with the Goosander? Could it be that the cormorant is getting all the blame when much of the problem lies with the Goosander?

[Ken L]

The big difference is that Goosander are a native inland bird where the Cormerant isn't. They're not exactly common in the midlands either and the only pair I ever saw was on the Severn a couple of years ago.

Kingfishers, Herons Grebes and Goosander are all part of an active and diverse freshwater ecosystem. Cormerant's arn't and their spead in large numbers negativly impacts on all of our piscavorious birds as much as it does anglers.

Shame the RSPB can'r see that....

[Alan Stubbs]

There's a huge disparity in popultation - so although the goosander is a fish-eating bird, the scale of predation is nothing like that of the cormorant.

[StuMac]

The big difference is that Goosander are a native inland bird where the Cormerant isn't.

 

The cormorent isn't native!!!!!!!!

 

Who introduiced them then?

[Dick Dastardly]

Wasnt me mate!

[Ken L]

They're certainly not native to inland waterways in the UK. I did read one report that suggested that the birds that we’ve always had along our coast are still there and those ravaging the rivers and lakes are a different race of cormorants normally found in continental Eurasia.

[StuMac]

They're certainly not native to inland waterways in the UK. I did read one report that suggested that the birds that we’ve always had along our coast are still there and those ravaging the rivers and lakes are a different race of cormorants normally found in continental Eurasia.

 

I've heard that too, but I'm afraid that counts as a natural movement. Wild animals don't have to accept national boudaries and neither do coastal species have to stay on the coast if there are better food sources elsewhere. If they expand their range naturally then they are native.

 

The problem is that almsot all surveys of UK rivers show that the numbers of freshawter fish are rising not falling. Match weights on rivers have risen over the last 20 years and Charlie Bettell is always complaining there are so many silver fish in the Yare that he can't catch any pike. This is particularly true in the North where previously heavily poluted waters have been cleaned up.

 

Up in Scotland you only see cormorents inland around stocked trout lochs. and if you look at the big inland roosts in the midlands / south of England that's exactly where they are too. I supoose most people fish stocked waters these days and there's no doubt they attract fish eating birds. Who can blame them?

 

I'm basically a naturalist, don't like the idea of wholescale slaughter of wild animals. People are always clamoring for something to be killed - pike, seals, cormornets, otters and now Goosander. Find its strange as most coarse anglers would never dream of killing a fish.

 

As most pike fishermen will tell you, the abundance of predators is almost always determined by the abundance of prey. I think the only real way to get rid of inland cormorents in the UK is to restrict artificial stocking. Not really practical as most people really wouldn't be satisfied with the sort of catches from a purely natural population.

 

I'm not really that oposed to a cul, in fact localised culling at roosts is probely the only thing to do but, but I very much doubt it will make any difference to the population numbers in the long term. Most birds are very long lived, and can lay clutches of eggs every year for 15 - 20 years and only two of these have to survive to keep the poulation stable. That means you can have well over 95% mortality without having any long term effect on the population. If you shoot one cormorent, then all you do is make it easier for a chick to survive and grow up to replace it. This is why egg bashing is such a poor way of controlling bird poulations, it has been tried a lot as a way of getting rid of sea birds that move into towns.

 

That's also the reason that grouse shoots to operate - they harvest a portion of the wild birds every year and maintain an environment that favours chick survival. This lets you kill an awful lot of birds every without affecting the population. In the UK we've created a number of very "cormorent Friendly" environments by stocking lakes and reservoirs to levels that could not be suported naturally. This means predator numbers have gone up (which is why are there so many pike in Ladybower, Chew etc) and there's no doubt that fish eating birds attracted in this way can damage natural fish populations.

 

Rant over!!

[Dick Dastardly]

From a recent post I made-

 

Out of interest I recently attended a fisheries semina where some interesting information was presented.

 

Apparently there has always been two main cormmorant populations -an inland one and a far greater off shore one.

 

Recent years hasnt seen a direct increase in the cormmorant population but merely a change in the numbers of the respective groups.ie the inland population has been swelled by the off shore one.

 

Contary to popular opinion (please at this point remember these are not my veiws/theories) this isnt because of the drop in amount of available food in the oceaan but rather the increase in "easily avaiable" food inland.This it is sugested is because of the increase in overstocked,shallow fisheries (ie in my words commercials).Historically during times of bad weather/food shortages the ocean dwelling birds would forray in land and the easyist targets were fish farms and trout waters (ie in my words again "artificial waters") They wouldnt stay permenantly.Now there are far more artificial waters it is believed that they have found it easier pickings to remain inland rather than returning to sea.This in turn means that as they clear out/over populate/get moved on from commercials/trout water/fish farms they will now be seen on rivers,cannals etc where you would rarely if never see the old origonal "inland population".

 

 

Also I didnt bother to point out in the origonal post that the speaker was from the origonal MAFF team that was set up to investigate the "problem".

[gozzer]

I'd read something similar Budgie, is this another case of angling shooting it self in the foot?

[Dick Dastardly]

Quite possibley mate.Man and nature are a funny thing,we often make mistakes when we try to control it.

 

Another (also repeated Im afraid!) annecdote re the Black death-

 

When we first took over Paquier de Graviers near Dijon the water was a strange turquise but clear colour.I tried to catch any thing else but the carp using both ledgered worms over groundbait speci style and maggots on a float rod.In nearly two weeks all I had managed was three perch,one rudd and a couple of sunbass! Now I aint no Bob Nudd but Im pretty handy with a match rod!Simple fact was that there was very few small fish in the water.The big carp were obviously there with just a few big bream ,big tench and (supposedly) big barbel,er notice the reppitition of "big"?Certainly wasnrt a great head of predators either.

 

Due to the new family,mortgage,work commitments I was away from the lake for nearly two years.When I returned my first shock was the colour of the water.It had changed to a rather muddy brown colour.Luke had decided in the early days to shoot all cormmorants on site! no daft rules regard culling in France! Two years later he had come to the conclusion that it was himself in the foot he had been shooting not the birds! Keeping the birds off had enabled the bream population to boom, the once cleaar water now muddied by their continual rooting about.The once popular tactic of stalking with a handfull of maize or corn now impossible without constantly catching skimmers.Ok the lake still done a world record but it had none the less been changed (and possibley for the worst) by culling the birds.Luke certainly feels it was a mistake and now longer does it.Its going to take a long time to remedy this "mistake" and who would have thought it would have been a mistake?

 

Nutrient enriched water,boillies,crayfish and global warming are all given as reasons for the increase in the size of our course fish but maybe,just maybe in the UK to our dreaded foe the Black death has had a hand in it with its selected culling of the smaller fish?

Edited April 18, 2006 by BUDGIE