Maybe we will finally get some Cormorant relief

Charles Copeland

Charles Copeland

New member
Hopefully this will lead to a season on these things. They eat around a pound of fish per day per bird and how many do you see while you're in the blind? I guess my biggest question is what do y'all think these taste like?
https://www.weisradio.com/u-s-department-of-interiors-fish-and-wildlife-service-solicits-public-input-on-cormorant-management/?fbclid=IwAR2OPMwVIpCBDbz0P9rRN2g5agIeGc1UqWdt_ZiIUHgN4AuBDpYU5c8toVY

And here is the link to the comment page for the proposed rule making:
https://www.regulations.gov/searchResults?rpp=25&po=0&s=FWS-HQ-MB-2019-0103&fp=true&ns=true
 
Years ago I heard from a very very good source who ate a couple that they were not too bad. It was easier than with some mergansers to make them taste respectable.

My guess is that they will end up learning to avoid hunters pretty quickly. They always seem fairly smart to me. Maybe not like crows but more observant than ducks and geese.
 
Actually this is an advanced notice of proposed rule making, and FWS is looking at 2 options just like the ones that were in place for years before being shut down in Court, 1. allowing state and tribal agents to control cormorants; and 2. issuing permits for aquacultural producers to take cormorants. Neither of those are hunting seasons. Cormorants are not considered game birds under law and therefore FWS can not authorize hunting seasons for them. Either way It'll be a while before FWS publishes a final rule that can be implemented

Also, in my opinion, unless you are going to eat them (and I doubt you'd survive baking one in your wife's oven), it would be a huge mistake to call this sport hunting. I believe that it would do more damage to the public perception of hunters and hunting than good it would do for fish populations and fishing.
 
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Ontario has proposed shooting cormorants, up to 50 per day. Similar comments about backlash against sport hunting when folks see piles of dead birds lying around.
 
Cormorants are hunted in Scandinavia and are known as good table fare. Who knows, maybe they taste like chicken.
 
USDA and the MDNR organized several hunts along northern Lake Michigan and Huron, at Poverty Shoal/Gravelly Shoal, Indian and McDonald Lakes, and the Cederville/Hessel area in the La Cheneaux Islands prior the Court mandated cessation. I was down in Fairport fishing salmon when one of the shoots took place on the Poverty Shoal, which was reduced to a gravel island by their guano's pH via defecation. Several of these islands are part of the Green Bay Wildlife Refuge. The refuge manager was a transfer from the Parks Division and had dragged her feet prior finally being forced to act...but not before three vegetated islands were lost within the refuge. Some local waterman/commercial fishers had transported pigs out to Poverty and Gravely Shoals, which were shot by USFWS personnel when the were discovered.

I talked to the USDA shooters when the barge and boat came back in to the marina, after their "hunt" concluded. They shot slightly over 2000 double crested cormorants, firing 4300 rounds in two days...all non-toxic shot. There were some sore shoulders among the group!
 

4300 rounds are a lot of "bullets".

Ya gotta wonder what the bill was for all that ammo, or did they get a deal from a manufacturer?

Cuz in this day and age, they will make & market " X's In Their Eyes Cormorant Specials".

Paleeeze...
 
The Cormorant was so abundant on the Mississippi River that their feces killed the trees and vegetation on several islands in pool 13 north of me. With the vegetation gone the islands eroded away. Around 2008 maybe the Corp of Engineers were in the process of re-constructing man made islands. I don't know if that project was completed or abandoned. I haven't been up that way in years since moving home from Florida. Since the islands eroded and there are no longer trees there the Cormorant population has dwindled significantly.
 
Vince, USDA was paying for the shot in those efforts. What I saw were boxes of Winchester Super-X and the blue and gray Federal, all 2 3/4" #2. They had an inflatable in tow with plastic barrels filled with dead birds. When I asked the shooters how the kept track...they produced the same hand-held thumb depressed clicker counters we used to use to count benthos in Ponar grab samples. Two islands in southern Green Bay waters were lost due to the denuding that Ed mentioned. The Green Bay Wildlife Sanctuary manager set 'visible damage' to vegetation as here criteria for active intervention. Poverty shoal has yet to recover any vegetation growth...
 
Rick,

Thanks for the info.

Man that's a whole lotta empties to pick up.

Back in the day, when there were plenty of birds my grouse hunting mentor would use a click counter to count flushes.


I don't know if there is any connection, but in western PA were I lived. The Double Crested Cormorants began showing up, when the Bald Eagles and Ospreys made a impressive comeback. That's a whole lotta mouths to feed, and apparently there was/is enough food to go around.

At the same time, the two large Great Blue Heron rookeries that were in the same area really took a nose dive. One rookery was so large the PA Game Commission built a viewing platform, after they acquired the property to protect the rookery.

The food chain continues, but with different players.

Where I now live in western NY, the Bald Eagles and Osprey are beginning their impressive come back. Last year I saw Double Crested Cormorants on small bodies of water, where I had not seen them in previous years.


Vince
 
Some one at the marina asked whether they retrieved all their spent casings...to several very nasty looks from the crew members!!
 
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