NYT/AP: Wildlife Officials to Kill 4, 000 Cormorants

[DeepModem Mom]

Wildlife Officials to Kill 4, 000 Cormorants
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 27, 2005
Filed at 9:21 a.m. ET


WALKER, Minn. (AP) -- Chris Anderson is only half-joking when he offers a solution for the hungry cormorants that are eating the fish in Leech Lake -- and taking money out of his pocket. ''Kill them all,'' he says of the voracious, predatory birds.

At Anderson's Cove, Anderson's resort on the western edge of the lake, just three of 11 cabins were rented for this month's walleye opener, after six years of strong opening weekends. Over the next month alone, Anderson figures he'll lose $40,000 or more through mid-June because of cabins standing empty....

***

Prodded by resort owners and fishing guides, wildlife officials have reached a dramatic decision: Over the summer, they will kill 4,000 or more of the diving birds.

Shauna Hanisch, who leads the Fish and Wildlife Service's cormorant project, acknowledges shooting the birds is the most drastic measure being taken to curb the populations in the United States. Other states, such as Michigan, New York and Vermont, are also dealing with burgeoning cormorant colonies, Hanisch said.

Some wildlife biologists and animal-rights groups oppose the plan, saying research about the bird and its eating habits is incomplete....


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Killing-Cormorants.html

[blindpig]

1. why do this

and who are the monsters installed by bu$h at Fish & Game? More kneejerk ecocide in the service of commercial interests.

Do they know what's going on here? Do we have an overabundance of birds or an underabundance of fish? If so, why? Is it over-fishing, pollution or a missing predator in the cormorants life?

Who cares? There's a disturbance in the cash flow, kill them all!

Why can people not live with Nature?

[villager]

2. Wildlife Officials to Kill 4,000 Cormorants

in order to boost revenues at a fishing resort...

Wildlife Officials to Kill 4,000 Cormorants

By GREGG AAMOT, Associated Press Writer

WALKER, Minn. - Chris Anderson is only half-joking when he offers a solution for the hungry cormorants that are eating the fish in Leech Lake — and taking money out of his pocket. "Kill them all," he says of the voracious, predatory birds.

At Anderson's Cove, Anderson's resort on the western edge of the lake, just three of 11 cabins were rented for this month's walleye opener, after six years of strong opening weekends. Over the next month alone, Anderson figures he'll lose $40,000 or more through mid-June because of cabins standing empty.

<snip>


Prodded by resort owners and fishing guides, wildlife officials have reached a dramatic decision: Over the summer, they will kill 4,000 or more of the diving birds. Shauna Hanisch, who leads the Fish and Wildlife Service's cormorant project, acknowledges shooting the birds is the most drastic measure being taken to curb the populations in the United States. Other states, such as Michigan, New York and Vermont, are also dealing with burgeoning cormorant colonies, Hanisch said.

<snip>

Although cormorants were nearly wiped out by the pesticide DDT in the 1960s and 1970s, the waterfowl has made enough of a comeback to pose a threat to commercial fishing and fish farming.

<snip>

Anderson has heard several theories about the walleye's low numbers: poor water quality or development along the 110,000-acre lake. He dismisses them with a wave of his hand.

<snip>

On a recent trip out to Little Pelican Island with reporters, Steve Mortensen, a fish and wildlife biologist for the Leech Lake band, said he regrets the bird's fate. "It's a human thing. We are dealing with who is going to get the walleye," he said with a shrug. "That's the bottom line."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050527/ap_on_re_us/killing_cormorants

[MisterP]

3. as a seabird rescuer, this makes me want to nailgun myself to something

[jobycom]

4. So, just as the walleyes rebreed, so will the cormorants

It's a short-sighted plan.

We have to acknowledge that human beings are part of nature, and will have an impact on it, but we are supposed to be the thinking part of nature.

[KyndCulture]

7. I'm fairly shocked by this in my state...

The DNR here is usually right on target with things... this seems so extreme. The resort industry here is suffering from the economy and the weather more than the fishing here. I live in a resort town near Walker and this is just stupid.

The past 2 summers the weather has been too cold for the cabins to sell out, this guy is on crack about why he's not booking cabins. Who the hell wants to swim and fish when the high is 50 degrees.

Shame on you Minnesota DNR...

[jobycom]

8. Reminds me of a rain dance

It won't do any good, but we have to try something!

[tinfoilinfor2005]

6. Either Discovery or National Geographic did a piece on cormorants

in, I believe, China (been a while since I've seen it), but it followed a fisherman who raised cormorants and taught them to fish for him. He rewarded them with part of the catch.
Amazing how the people of some countries can interact with animals for the benefit of both. We prefer to kill 'em.

[bloom]

5. Watching the world go down.... eom

[Canuckistanian]

9. It's a little more complicated than that

There are some areas where cormorant populations have exploded. There's one such population here in Ontario.

This is a matter of the ecosystem out of whack. Someone surmised that lack of larger bird predators such as eagles, hawks, etc. led to this situation. Also, our preference for the same fish that they eat makes us much more aware of the problem. We restock lakes and rivers with their favorite fish, their population explodes, they eat more fish and compete with us. It's a vicious circle.

Until we make people understand that all life forms interact with each other, sometimes in ways we don't understand yet, these kind of things will be getting more common.

[McIntyre]

18. "Our" vs. "The"

My mantra is to refer to it as "our" environment, not "the" environment which insinuates we are somehow apart from it. Further, it usually tacitly implies that "the" environment is expendable, you know, something we can live without (kinda like BushCo thinking). You will find if you make this small semantic change (and encourage others to do the same) that your thinking begins to change.

[patcox2]

10. There's no shortage of cormorants.

And they do gobble up fish. They have expanded to greater numbers than is healthy for the environment, as they are thriving in a disrupted environment, not a natural one.

[WillParkinson]

11. They have expanded to greater numbers....

Gee, what other species does that remind me of....hmm....Oh, wait! Yes, of course. The one that is the CAUSE of a disrupted environment.

Why do people complain about an explosion in the population of animals when more often than not they are to blame for it? Remove the natural predators and other animals rise in numbers. We don't want them but we don't want the predators either.

The animals are doing what comes naturally for them. Do I feel sorry for the commercial fisherman? Um....no.

[0rganism]

12. So you want to cull an overpopulated species in a disrupted environment?

Go no further than your nearest shopping mall. There you will find hundreds, perhaps thousands, of greedy predators in the process of destroying the biosphere for their own base pleasures. As you say, they do gobble up fish, they have expanded to numbers completely unsustainable on a planetary scale, and they thrive in conditions that can only be described as unnatural. Do what you must.

[patcox2]

14. Hey, great argument, killing animals is the same as killing people.

Screw the cormorants.

Everything dies. Eventually. Whats a year or two either way?

I will never shed a tear for an animal, much less a vermin, until there isn't a hungry or suffering human child on earth.

[The Stranger]

20. Last I checked, humans are animals.

And, actually, in a sense, some people are vermin. :hi:

[0rganism]

22. I don't see you refuting it

Your response constitutes nothing more than denial.

"Screw the ____. Everything dies. What's a year or two either way?"

Fill in the blank. You can apply it to anything at all, INCLUDING HUMANS. We are no different than other animals with respect to our mortality.

Until you give some substantial reasoning to the contrary, of course.

[XemaSab]

13. This is so disturbing

Killing off a wildlife population because humans aren't making as much money as they would like?

So lame.

[patcox2]

15. But what of the fishes, these cormorants are a holocaust to them.

Oh, where does it stop?

[XemaSab]

16. It's part of the plan

God is punishing the resort owener for their crimes against the environment by sending a plague of cormorants. They must repent.

[patcox2]

19. I have a plague of cormorants of my own, they crap on my boat.

Grotesque creatures. What have I done, that I must be always cleaning up the big white and brown splashes with the piles of fish bones in them?

[bleedingheart]

17. These ideas never work - The Birds are Smarter than the People

My community has a problem with Canadian Geese...so the brainiacs decided to have a massive geese kill...well the first gun that went off drove all the geese away from the lakes and ponds and perhaps one or two were shot....

So ...what to do ...what to do...can't poison them cuz it will leach in the water or it could kill someone's pet or child....so now they just hose down the walking paths of the goose poop and pray that some predator will come along and eat them...

[RebelOne]

21. Yup, all for the benefit of the sport fishermen.

Can't have those birdies eating all the fish up so there is nothing left for the recreational angler to catch.:sarcasm:

[MisterP]

23. extraterrestrials would be the ones afraid and disgusted by US,

we're the villains in "Independence Day": if we're annoyed or queasy or idle or bored or sadistic or want to save a few Franklins or found out we squeezed sucked too much out of the environment we kill animals by the millions and wipe out entire species