Cormorants,End protection......

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.....When invading freshwater?

Cormorants are becoming more and more common on rivers as well as lakes,lodges,gravel pits etc etc.

Is it time to end thier protection when on inland freshwater? I am no angler and don`t believe in killing things for no reason.However, I do believe that if we are unable to control this species then they will empty the larder for other species,Kingfishers for example.

Anyway, open for debate,whaddya reckon?

Without it turning into pulling hair, schoolground antics.......:D
 
cormorants can be shot legally the said water can apply for a licence to cull them
 
garymicheal said:
cormorants can be shot legally the said water can apply for a licence to cull them
Click to expand...

Yes, i`m fully aware of that mate.However, with them now appearing in numbers on rivers,would it make more sense to be able to despatch them when we see them rather than see them, apply for a licence,wait a week or so and hope they are still knocking about............:shrug:
 
I was not aware of cormorants feeding inland until I spotted two in a small private fishing lake some 6 mile inland, I was really surprised the first time I spotted one just as it disappeared on a dive, at the time thinking what the heck was that.

They are there every time I walk past the same lake, if they are not in the water diving they are perched in a nearby tree digesting their catch!!
 
these where at clumber park Nottinghamshire as you can see it wouldn't take them long to wipe out a fishery i for one think they need culling back OK its not there fault there's no fish in the sea but inland fishery's cost a lot of time and money to up keep and along comes a flock of cormorants and clears it out not funny for the fishery owners at all
 
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Though I have no real allegiance to the angling fraternity, they do a good job on the upkeep of the rivers and lakes,lobbying for cleaner water etc etc.This has been good for a variety of other wildlife and is one of the reasons that kingfishers are so abundant IMO. The problem is that a lot of this other wildlife is now having thier staple diet eroded badly by cormorants and are having to turn to other food/larger fish,otters for example.

We are getting cormorants on the rivers up here,not just lakes and stuff.
 
Vile birds that maim fish, plenty round here that have been shot by "accident"

Counted twenty three of them the other day in one small area, horrible looking things too
 
The black death....

garymicheal said:
cormorants can be shot legally the said water can apply for a licence to cull them
Click to expand...

True, but the licence extends to about two or three birds per year, not much use to a fishery owner who's sinking thousands into new stock each year to compensate. Plus, shoot one and there will be one, two, three to take its place.

The RSPB estimate over 9,000 breeding pair with 24,000+ wintering birds in the UK. Not good if you're a roach.

They're a menace, they're not indigineous to inland Britain (despite what bird lovers will argue) and therefore should be controlled more with more effect by governing bodies like the EA, otherwise natural venues and stocked fisheries alike will suffer more and more each year at the hands of these indiscriminate predators.

I do not pay my fishing licence to deal with rivers et al that are suffering overextraction, increased otter activity, flood damage to spawning grounds AND the threat of stock extinction at the hands of cormorants.

If you need proof of the effect they have, head over to Holme Pierpoint and Attenborough gravel pits and you'll see what they can do....
 
So if you are allowed to cull them, does that mean you can `beat a good shag?
 
Disagree with these sentiments they may not be indeginous to inland waterways but they did adapt as a speices to live there. if fishery stocks weren't kept artifically high they, like other species, would find a balance inline with their environment

Hugh
 
The problem is this; regardless of whether they're inland because of overfishing at sea, or simply because they're greedy and know where their bread is buttered because of a free meal inland, many thousands of jobs rely on the fisheries industry (and the associated angling trade).

There are few species that will make a wholesale move to a totally different environment to find food - cormorants are the only one that's done it en masse. The fact that stocks are kept artifically high is irrelevant in the great scheme of things; I'd say people's livelihoods are much more important at the moment. Waters that haven't been stocked by man (i.e. rely on natural breeding) have been wiped out by Cormorants - that is unacceptable.

By no means am I saying wipe out cormorants altogether but effective control, whether that's by the trigger or poison, of inland groups is essential to give working people as much of a chance as possible to keep their jobs in a very hard economic time.
 
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I do agree they probably need some sort of control but whilst the angling industry has done some really good work for the environment over the last few years, they and they're not the only body need to stay aware that meddling with the species balance in this case keeping fish stocks high does cause unintended results, culling in this case is probably the answer but it feels like a sticking plaster solution that does need a more though through solution in the long term

Hugh
 
They are not meddling, the cormorants are pillaging the stocks that other predators,likeable ones, live on.Thus shoving our indigenous predators to other quarry.
 
like other species, cormorants will find a balance with their food source. If you over supply that food, ie by artifically restocking a fishing like then a species which can benefit from that will thrive, like the cormorants, with the effects we've seen

I'm not saying they don't need culling but some more thought needs to go into how to control this balance over the longer term and yes I do think over stocking a lake is meddling.
 
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So, how do you explain thier prescence on the rivers that are stocked naturally?

Edit....,not argumentative, would like to hear your opinion.
 
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;-) not taken as argumentative either, I wonder if that was the way they'd spread inland originally and then found well stocked fishing lakes which caused their population to explode. I know they're not indigineous frshwater birds, but I do remember seeing them on the Trent just up river from Holme Pierrepont (in small numbers) when I was at school (and that was more years ago then I want to remember)
 
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