Cormorants in the cross hairs
A prominent McMaster water bird researcher says nature, not guns, should be used to solve the cormorant overpopulation problem
The population of double-crested cormorants has grown exponentially in the province, but unleashing hunters on them is not the way to control their numbers, says a prominent McMaster University biologist.
Jim Quinn, who has been studying cormorants and other water birds in Hamilton Harbour since the early ’90s, says “I think hunting them is a crazy idea and unnecessary because the population is stabilizing on its own.”
The provincial Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry is proposing to list cormorants as a “game bird,” creating a hunting season to help manage the population. The move is in response to concerns from anglers, commercial fishers, and others who feel the migratory brown-black birds are consuming too many fish, pushing out other water birds and fouling nesting areas with guano.
“This is about population control. The population of cormorants has exploded since the early 1970s,” Natural Resources Minister John Yakabuski said last week. The government is looking at allowing hunters to kill up to 50 a day. A public consultation period is underway until Jan. 3 before a final decision is made by the ministry.
Quinn contends cormorants — that were almost wiped out between the 1950s and 1970s because of environmental contaminants, but rebounded since then — are “approaching or have reached a point of zero population growth.
“That means we may be in a situation where the population is not going to expand any further. Any efforts to kill off a certain number of cormorants, will throw the population back into a more rapid growth form.”
He fears this could become another case of “humans deciding they are going to manipulate Mother Nature, and it ends up making things worse.”
But the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters argues that leaving the issue to nature will not be enough.
“We can’t assume doing so will result in natural ecosystems returning to the way they were. Development, contaminants, invasive species and other human actions have altered our natural ecosystems. To help balance our ecosystems, human intervention is sometimes required. Cormorant control is one way we can successfully achieve this,” the federation says in an online backgrounder on the issue.
Quinn says studies he has been involved in show that cormorants “are mostly feeding on fish that are a problem — alewife and round gobies that are non-native.”
He is also concerned that hunters shooting at cormorants would terrorize other nearby water birds, causing some to “desert their colonies to back off on caring for their young.”
No matter what the province eventually decides, the hunting of cormorant would not be allowed in Hamilton Harbour because it is in an urban area where hunting is not permitted, said Chris McLaughlin, executive director of the Bay Area Restoration Council.
Hamilton Harbour’s population of cormorants has jumped to about 3,500 pairs from 600 pairs in the 1990s. But Quinn says the harbour can manage the numbers. He and his researchers keep an eye on the birds and move nests when cormorants put pressure on other species.
As for Hamilton Conservation Authority property, the authority’s Gord Costie says “cormorants are not a nuisance or in high numbers.” If hunting is eventually allowed in Ontario, he did not expect the conservation authority would permit it on conservation property.