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Cormorants and Angling - An Open Letter to the RSPB

By Rod Sturdy 29/08/2012 09:13:00

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Cormorants and Angling - An Open Letter to the RSPB

Rod Sturdy responds to a recent piece by Simon Barnes in the RSPB newsletter.

If you have not yet read Simon Barnes’ feature it is reproduced here in full:

"IT’S HARD TO DEAL WITH HATE by Simon Barnes

No matter how calm and rational you are, you’ll never argue people out of hate. You can explain gently that the object of their hatred is not half as bad as they thought, but you won’t get anywhere. They don’t think they’re hating: they believe they’re fighting evil.

For some anglers, cormorants are evil. They are embodiments of greed and voracity and should be shot to bits at every opportunity. The idea of a cormorant sitting insolently on its tree with a belly-full of fish, drying its wings with a smug expression on its face, knowing that the angler is unable to do a thing about it – well, that makes the angler’s blood boil.

Especially if he is having a poor day. Under investigation, it’s a visceral response from the guts of the hunter: a howl of anguish from a person who feels unjustly deprived of what should be his by right. And there is a cormorant: so big, so black, so gloriously ugly. Of course it’s the cormorant’s fault: you only have to look at the expression on its face.

That is what many fishing people feel, and it’s fair enough. The problem is that they want this howl of anguish to become the law of the land. They want the right to shoot cormorants any time they see one, any time they feel like it. The world, they believe, would be a better place without cormorants.

How can you oppose so deep-seated a feeling? Rationality doesn’t work, facts don’t convince, anger is not going to help. As I write, Defra is reviewing the position of cormorants in England. With any luck, by the time you read this, this won’t have made things worse for cormorants. As we stand, cormorants can be shot in certain circumstances. You can apply for a licence to do so, and it is considered on a case by case basis. Since 2004, it’s become much easier to get such a licence in England.

You no longer have to show that cormorants are causing serious damage: you just have to show they are there and therefore might cause serious damage. And up to 3,000 a year can be shot.

That’s not enough for the angling lobby. They are campaigning to have cormorants put on the general licence. That would mean that you could shoot them without reference to anybody, just as you can shoot magpies, crows and woodpigeons. This would be devastating: there are about a million woodpigeons in Great Britain; there are just 35,000 cormorants.

A number of bogus arguments have been put up to support the anti-cormorant lobby: arguments that make good headlines, but which lack a basis in those pesky things called facts. It has been claimed that cormorants are not native British birds: that they are vile interlopers like Canada geese and ring-necked parakeets.

That is simply wrong: cormorants are as much a part of British life as the robin in your back garden. Other arguments grossly exaggerate the amount of fish that cormorants take: in a year a cormorant eats the equivalent of a blue whale, or enough to feed a third world country for five years – I exaggerate, but so do they. Cormorants eat what they need to survive, and no more.

There is another suggestion that cormorants eat the fish that would otherwise be taken by kingfishers and grebes, and so they are depriving us of our ‘real’ British birds. It’s an argument that reminds me of the famous marginal note from a national newspaper editor: “interesting if true”. And it is not. There is no decline in kingfishers or grebes. It’s an idea that’s just been made up, plucked out of the air. It convinces people because one look at a cormorant tells you that they are capable of any enormity. Cormorants eat fish. That’s accepted.

In some cases, they cause problems to those who take part in the sport of angling. The RSPB doesn’t oppose shooting in such cases as a last resort. But it’s also a good idea to introduce such things as fish refuges, which give the fish somewhere to hide. Such practices are more sustainable than shooting a cormorant every time one comes along. But constructive moves don’t appease the hatred. Only destructive moves will do that. The perfect enemy Cormorants look like vultures. They look sinister. What they do for a living can compromise what some humans do for fun.

They are the perfect enemy: a bird that attracts little sympathy. I love them for the heraldic shape they make when they hang their wings out to dry, for their pterodactyl silhouette in flight, and because they are just so damn good at fishing. Precisely the reasons they are hated, but there you go. I’ve just given you some emotional reasons for having cormorants about the place. We must discard them at once. And the opposition needs to discard emotion as well. We have a serious clash here, and no amount of shouting will solve it. We bird-people must set aside love as we continue the argument, just as the anglers must set aside hate. And it is always a sad day when hate wins any argument."

Rod Sturdy replies:

RSPB
The Lodge
Potton Road
Sandy
Bedfordshire
SG19 2DL

28 August 2012

Dear Sirs

I read with dismay and disbelief Simon Barnes’s piece in the latest RSPB newsletter. Dismay, because he does not for a second deviate from what I have found to be the stock RSPB attitude to wildlife in general: that only birds are of any consequence; all other life seems to exist only to feed birds. And disbelief, because he is so patently disingenuous in his statements on cormorants.

The idea that cormorants should be given a free hand to plunder (there is no other word for it) our inland waterways does indeed make anglers’ blood boil. Five cormorants are quite capable of eating their way through a tonne of fish per year. I have personally witnessed cormorants which are nearly incapable of taking off after a feeding session in freshwater. I note that Simon Barnes appears to subscribe to the rather romantic view of predation which insists that ‘they only take what they need’. Don’t believe a word of it – the cormorant is a voracious and highly efficient predator and will take fish in a feeding frenzy while the going is good. Once small fish are in short supply, a cormorant will always have a go at larger fish, leaving them with gaping wounds and the chance of fatal fungal infection. Even 35,000 birds will be able to eat their way through a phenomenal quantity of fish. In comparison, kingfishers and herons (birds which, incidentally, we anglers love to see) have an insignificant impact.

The reality is that herons and kingfishers are now in direct feeding competition with cormorants. Nobody can be very much in doubt as to which would win, if the situation was left as it is. And please do not tell me that cormorants are a native British bird, with as much right to be there as the robin. Simon Barnes conveniently forgets that cormorants have migrated inland from sea to freshwater. They are now at the stage, such is the depletion of the sea, of migrating from freshwater in northern Europe to freshwater in the UK. The already pressured inland environment in being impacted by a species it could well do without. But then that’s the RSPB: all birds deserve unlimited protection, whatever they are and whatever effect they have.

He disingenuously refers to fish refuges as the answer to cormorant predation. On stillwaters these have their place. But eventually the birds will rumble these for what they are, and we are then back to square one. And the idea that fish refuges, even if they did work, could be placed effectively in several thousand miles of river in the UK is clearly a ludicrous one.

There is more than a hint of hostility to angling in Simon Barnes’s article. His anti-angling stance is beyond doubt when he observes that ‘what they do for a living can compromise what some humans do for fun’. I consider that the many RSPB members who fish would do well to take note of this view: one can only assume that is not out of tune with official RSPB policy: both on cormorants, and of course on fishing. He refers to us anglers as ‘the opposition’, against which ‘we bird people’ should by implication close ranks.

Perhaps the RSPB would care to distance itself formally from Mr Barnes’s rather sanctimonious statements?

Or alternatively, I think a formal statement on its position vis-à-vis angling is long overdue.

We fish people – and many of us are in fact RSPB members - would love to know where we stand.

RJ STURDY

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Comments (30 posted):

Lord Paul of Sheffield on 29/08/2012 09:52:54

good reply - but whilst many anglers are bird watches the hard core twitches will be those whos voice is heard. More anglers who support the RSPCB need to complain and stop their subscription

David Rogers 3 on 29/08/2012 10:59:37

Whilst I agree with much of Rod Sturdy's response, it's pointless to claim the cormorant isn't native to the UK. Rod Sturdy says "And please do not tell me that cormorants are a native British bird, with as much right to be there as the robin. Simon Barnes conveniently forgets that cormorants have migrated inland from sea to freshwater." He's mixing up two different points here, to the detriment of his argument. Yes, cormorants have moved inland from the coast, but that isn't the same thing as saying they are "non-native". You could say the same thing about some species of gull that are now seen as commonly inland as on the coast. Perhaps he's unaware that the populations of many bird species thought to be typically British (including robins) are boosted during the winter by influxes from continental Europe? If you're going to present an effective counter-argument, you need to get your facts straight. If you don't, the opposition will just have a good laugh at your expense.

bennygesserit on 29/08/2012 12:30:17

Both letters full of posturing and opinion without any evidence - so not really worth a read.

fishface1 on 29/08/2012 13:20:11

A bit of a worry when this chap seems to be a luminary for the Angling Trust, Chalk Stream Grayling by Rod Sturdy - The Angling Trust when he can write such nonsense in this letter on cormorants, and on otters in his previous article....

chub_on_the_block on 29/08/2012 14:35:32

I thought the cormorants now causing problems inland are a different sub species that a) nest in trees rather than sea cliffs b) were not native and c) are causing problems across Europe too. It is clear to me that Simon Barnes hasnt spent many years birdwatching inland. Otherwise he would have noticed that this bird was formerly a rarity (and more often a shag rather than a cormorant) until recent decades. As usual the RSPB is only really interested in the birds. They do not serve all wildlife equally when they take control of sites - eg. they destroy marshy areas to create wader scrapes which are then enriched by hundreds of geese. Although the RSPB has officers with a good knowledge of ecology and how different parts relate to each other, this Simon Barnes has a blatant disregard to the role of fish in natural waters or their intrinsic value besides being of interest to anglers. Not only do fish provide food for piscivorous birds but they have a top-down effect on invertebrates, zooplankton and even the habitat itself. Whilst too many fish can be bad and result in pea soup waters, not enough is an unnatural situation too. I suspect a lot of the problem with overstocked waters full of stunted roach or rudd was caused by the decimation of perch through disease in the 1960s and 1970s, a situation that has now passed, thankfully. The impact of having many fewer silver fish left will be better understood in the coming years, by which time any damage - such as reductions in the numbers of kingfishers or herons, or habitat changes etc will be apparent. The precautionary principle should not allow such an unnatural factor to take such a grip before it is acted on. To have 80 cormorants on a 10 acre lake for a few months, which is something i am familiar with, is not something that a British lake had ever been subjected to before and the balanced fish populations, even with their cycles of rise and fall of different year classes, have never been subjected to such a stress before. The complete absence of silver fish from the lake i know, and similar changes in others i have fished, is a most striking and unwelcome change. Pity the RSPB is so anti-angling. I have been a RSPB member, a naturalist and an angler as long as i can remember. But if i have to start choosing between them, it wont be with the birds.

David Rogers 3 on 29/08/2012 15:22:18

I thought the cormorants now causing problems inland are a different sub species that a) nest in trees rather than sea cliffs b) were not native and c) are causing problems across Europe too. Apparently, even experienced birders have difficulty telling cormorant sub-species apart! Cormorant subspecies identification

chub_on_the_block on 29/08/2012 15:34:17

Thanks for that David. So a good proportion are likely to be a non-native species, the "native" ones displaced by human factors such as overfishing of near-shore waters. An un-natural and unprecedented situation. If we add on other alien factors like signal crayfish predation on fish eggs or fish prey such as invertebrates, and its fair to say that "fish have never had it so bad" as Macmillan might have said.

bennygesserit on 29/08/2012 16:18:27

My view really is to classify cormorants as vermin , i.e. they are apparantley numerous and they are damaging a protected resource and are appearing in unnatural and previously unobserved numbers , its easy for me to reconcile this view with otters , which I believe previously occurred in balanced numbers.

MarkTheSpark on 30/08/2012 09:37:27

Simon Barnes and Rod Sturdy are as bad as each other; exaggeration and posturing dressed up as reasoned argument. I have a book about seabird populations which gives several paragraphs to the number of inland cormorants living and breeding in England, Wales and Scotland. It was published in 1967. We have always had cormorants inland. The evidence of what I see is that we now have quite a lot more cormorants living and breeding on inland waterways. And I also see that we have rather fewer cormorants on the coast and, indeed, half the number of birds of all species compared to birdwatching in my youth. Of course, the reason there are fewer seabirds is that most of them eat fish, and we have wiped out entire populations of fish. When the edible ones were gone, we set about the inedible fish like sandeels to create fishmeal (and marine halibut pellets, BTW) to farm fish. And sandeels is what many fish such as puffins and guillemots eat. That's why the population of these birds is in freefall. The farmed fish end up on a slab or in trout fisheries. Thus, aside from the relatively small amount of sandeels we destroy by using them as pellet baits, angling contributes to destroying the marine habitat. Nothing - absolutely nothing at all - is being done that has any meaningful effect on the scale of industrial fishing. There is currently NO reason for any optimism for the state of the seas. Things are getting much worse, not better. Now, whether the cormorants we see inland are the sinensis subspecies or not (and I don't care), the reason they are here is to eat fish. The reason there are more of them is because they are more successful at it. In all probability that's because so many lakes are managed or overseen by wildlife trusts and the like, who wouldn't consider shooting them. Cormorants are, of course, being barrelled in their hundreds; I personally know one fishery manager who has shot 58 this year. I don't condone law-breaking and I would always err on the side of improving habitat (and fish refuges and habitat management DOES work), I don't see how RSPB supporter, contributor and evangelist Simon Barnes can be sanctimonious about that. After all, the RSPB 'manages' many of its reserves by culling ground predators, as they should if we are to maintain habitat for nuclei of rare birds which would otherwise be forced to extinction by our intrusion into the few remaining wild places we have. The answer to the cormorant problem? I don't have one, I have many. Improve habitat (as the RSPB do); keep the cull licence as it is; let the law and cormorant shooters continue their cat and mouse existence; build better alliances with wildlife groups so they see angling as a force for good, and understand the issues facing angling. Oh, and smash Simon Barnes' computer to bits, not just because he's anti-angling but also because he can't write.

jasonbean1 on 30/08/2012 18:13:15

bit more like it..proper post that. as someone who shot cormorants many years ago on the small lake i was running i could not beleive the damage they done so quickly. these birds were proper organised and really knew what they were doing. this was in leicester 25 years ago. nowadays a few more years down the line i see the bigger picture and fully subscribe to marks way of thinking...basically because it the only way we will move forward. i doubt it will ever happen though because of the void between the likes of the angling trust and wildlife groups. on the angling side of things the the press just does not get it right and constantly bangs the drum that divides us. anyway i live in oxford now and look over the thames, seacourt stream, tc pit, 5 mile drive pit, and the oxford canal.....alot of water with lots of fish. i see 1 bird a day working these and that might build up to 5 in winter. more than enough fish for them and us....few people around though interestingly i walked port meadow a couple of weeks ago and found one cormorant hiding himself amongst a flock of grey lags by the river...he looked sheepishly at me as if he knew i knew he was up to no good...but credit where credits due! cheers jason

tigger on 30/08/2012 20:10:14

geoffmaynard on 30/08/2012 20:34:56

I can remember 40 yrs ago as a child watching cormorants in just as high a number on my local waters as what there are today...maybe more. Most people simply don't know their arse from their elbow and know ball all about nature. Imo cormorants are part of our natural wildlife system and have just as much right to be there as we have. That's interesting Tigger. Probably like you I've spent my life fishing in the open air but I had never seen a cormorant until the early 80s when I first moved to this area and saw them on the Wraysbury Lakes.

tigger on 30/08/2012 22:10:27

That's interesting Tigger. Probably like you I've spent my life fishing in the open air but I had never seen a cormorant until the early 80s when I first moved to this area and saw them on the Wraysbury Lakes. Well that's 30yrs ago then Geoff, so it was quite some time ago since you saw them also. At the end of the day just like fox's, stoats, magpies, rats etc etc on a pheasn't shoot, farm etc their numbers could explode above their natural number when in an artificially high supply of food so I suppose culling is an option in these circumstances. The thing is these problems are caused by people overstocking waters so they can catch large numbers of fish...easily :rolleyes:

chub_on_the_block on 30/08/2012 22:24:31

The thing is these problems are caused by people overstocking waters so they can catch large numbers of fish...easily :rolleyes: Tell that to a roach angler on the Avon or Stour, or any affected river come to think of it (these places are not stocked). I rarely saw any cormorants in my first period of fishing (mid 1970s to late 80s) infact the only one i can remember was on a birdwatching trip to a London reservoir with the Young Ornithologists Club. I have lived and fished in different areas, so maybe the Cormorant Central where i now find myself living (A1/Great Ouse area) always did have roosts of 80+ cormorants on various lakes during the winter months and small dispersed groups of a few individuals at other times - but talking to anglers who have fished around here since the 1970s the problem is a recent one. I heard first hand an account of one club lake that was stocked with 10,000 silvers and 12 months later when the EA did a fish survey to investigate poor catches they caught something like 17 fish. This was at site near to other lakes and the Great Ouse itself - so you would think their would be plenty of alternative places for the cormorants to switch between. In this area it seems the only waters with a plentiful stock of roach, rudd etc are the waters that are heavily fished all year round which dissuades the cormorants from raiding them. Unfortunately, those are precisely the waters i try to avoid.

tigger on 31/08/2012 08:47:08

Tell that to a roach angler on the Avon or Stour, or any affected river come to think of it (these places are not stocked). I rarely saw any cormorants in my first period of fishing (mid 1970s to late 80s) infact the only one i can remember was on a birdwatching trip to a London reservoir with the Young Ornithologists Club. I have lived and fished in different areas, so maybe the Cormorant Central where i now find myself living (A1/Great Ouse area) always did have roosts of 80+ cormorants on various lakes during the winter months and small dispersed groups of a few individuals at other times - but talking to anglers who have fished around here since the 1970s the problem is a recent one. I heard first hand an account of one club lake that was stocked with 10,000 silvers and 12 months later when the EA did a fish survey to investigate poor catches they caught something like 17 fish. This was at site near to other lakes and the Great Ouse itself - so you would think their would be plenty of alternative places for the cormorants to switch between. In this area it seems the only waters with a plentiful stock of roach, rudd etc are the waters that are heavily fished all year round which dissuades the cormorants from raiding them. Unfortunately, those are precisely the waters i try to avoid. As I said if there really is a problem and it's not just anglers spouting sheeeite because they've seen two or three birds then some may well need poppin off. Thing is if anglers see one bird they're screeming it out complaining and demamding them to be erradicated, infact they do the very same with any of the larger predators of fish. I think the majority of time a lot of anglers just like to moan and enjoy jumpin on the hate wagon.

geoffmaynard on 31/08/2012 18:24:10

The thing is, cormorants have usually already fed for the day by the time most anglers get to the water so most people never see them feeding. Most their hunting is over by an hour after sunrise, the rest of the day is spent digesting the catch. The 'drying wings' birds are actually digesting food they've already consumed, nothing to do with wet feathers. (despite what Wiki might tell us). As to the amount they eat, do the sums. Each bird can easily eat a pound of fish a day - multiply this by the number of birds, then allow for breeding increase every year and see how much is consumed over a decade. It's scary.

The bad one on 01/09/2012 01:46:49

Like Geoff I never saw cormorants on inland waters as a kid. The only time I ever saw them was when we were on holiday in North Wales around the cliff areas. A point here, the majority we see in the NW in the winter are coastal birds from Wales. They are the Carbo carbo not Carbo sinensis. I.e. they are coastal birds. One water I fished from being 12 was Elton Reservoir Bury and in them days and up until the mid 80s they weren't on the reser. Then they started to appear, a few at first 5-10, then by the mid 90s there were anything from 30 to 50 every day during the winter. I know this as fact, I counted them many times with the down time whilst piking. There was also a birder I got friendly with who walked the area every day and he confirmed the numbers also. Having been an angler at one time, even he voiced his concerns to me about the numbers visiting the reser. But here's the crux of this account, about 3 years ago they drained the reser all 52 acres of it. They netted and electro fished it to get as many fish as they possibly could do. The vast majority of the 1500lbs of fish they captured were large fish mainly bream Elton was noted for its bream always had been, a few tench, odd carp. Even with the effort they put in to capturing as many fish as possible, they only got about 200-250 lbs of small fish out. Roach, perch, very few skimmers. Elton had always been a sustainable and highly productive fishery in the past, with good amounts of fish throughout the size range. Matches were won in the summer with 60lb of bream from skimmers up to fish of 5lb + with lots of back up weights. During the winter the target was roach for the matches and 4lb wouldn't get you a section win. Given the fact they only got 1500 lbs of fish out of it, a 52 acre reser, despite the effort they put in, should tell you something about how damaging the cormorants had been to this water. A good productive sustainable fishery and Elton was before the Death started visiting it, should be producing between 400-600 lbs an acre. I'll do the Math for you at the lower figure (400) 400 X 52 = 20,800 lbs or 4.684 Imperial ton of fish. The actually poundage they took out per acre was 28.864lbs I also know of another club water, where the same was done, emptied netted and the figures for that mirrored the figures for Elton. And on that one I did the weighing and record keeping of weight of fish removed.

barbelboi on 01/09/2012 08:00:08

Like some others I've fished for many years, much of the time on the Colne Valley, Yateley, Frimley, plus the Thames and many of it's tributaries and also don't remember seeing a Cormorant on inland waters until the 80's. Jerry

tigger on 01/09/2012 09:06:01

jasonbean1 on 01/09/2012 09:08:01

the angling trust campaign on cormorants is inevitably going to make little or any difference nationwide, particularly on rivers. commercial interests in lakes/ponds will ensure that the owners will protect there interests with or without the law on there side as it always as been. so what about rivers?....angling clubs on rivers such as the avon and stour will always struggle with siver fish stocks nowadays. if laws are changed who is going to go out and shoot all these cormorants on the rivers?....most anglers dont possess guns and the difficulties of getting accesss to land to do it is nigh on impossible on rivers due to the fact they normally have public access along there lengths in the form of footpaths and nature reserves. so for the river angler things have changed there is no doubt about it.... but it's not all doom and gloom, there is still big roach around on alot of rivers...you just have to fish in different areas for them. town centers and cities perhaps hold some of the biggest roach going now....it can be a pain in the arse fishing them and not quite the idyllic country setting that you may find on the avon or stour. recently i have started fishing in a city centre at dawn and to be honest i've been absolutely gobsmacked by the size and numbers of roach...yet if i travelled 5 miles upstream into the country a totally different story. cheers Jason

MarkTheSpark on 01/09/2012 09:42:43

bennygesserit on 01/09/2012 10:19:28

chub_on_the_block on 01/09/2012 12:47:50

Good shout Jason about the practicalities of shooting, the implication is that there are more roach in urban settings as there are fewer cormorants , isnthat right ? If so is there something in an urban setting that disturbs the cormorants but not the fish ? If you knew what that was you could maybe create a cormorant scarecrow ? Cars and traffic, street lights, a few thousand people walking the banks every day.. Scarecrow?

bennygesserit on 01/09/2012 13:30:15

Cars and traffic, street lights, a few thousand people walking the banks every day.. Scarecrow? Ha Ha I'm just an ideas man :) Maybe noise ? They used to disperse pigeons in Walsall using loud bangs. If its not practical to shoot them in any great numbers even if licences allowed then some other solution is needed.

chub_on_the_block on 01/09/2012 13:35:12

If its not practical to shoot them in any great numbers even if licences allowed then some other solution is needed. Behavioural management classes - train them to think theyre ducks. I like ducks...a bit of electric shock therapy can go a long way. Take fish = electric shock. Take bread = good (need to train them to like bread though)

geoffmaynard on 01/09/2012 20:22:33

The wing-drying behaviour of cormorants is, er, to dry the wings. The thing about them using wing-beats to stimulate blood flow and heat for digestion has been debunked a time or two, I believe. I was told the reverse Mark. However Stanford university suggest the jury is still out: Spread-Wing Postures

The bad one on 02/09/2012 01:48:44

A good m8 of mine did the eco work on that ress and he reckons the reason for the low numbers of fish was mainly down to lack of food. The bream where obviously past their sell by date being emaciated through lack of food and old age and most other fish where starving and stunted. Even if the fish spawned apparently there was no food for the fry to feed on and if there was the larger fish where that hungry they'd scoff the lot easily as there was no where for the fry to hide. He said when the ress is filled back up the fish flourish for a spell eating all the food on the newly submersed ground but without new weed beds to produce insects etc the fish would soon start to starv again. The fish had been easy pickings for the corm's as there was simply no cover to evade them. Apparently they're planting beds of weeds/plants to create feeding places and cover. It's obvious in a water like this that the corm's will clean up ! Interesting that because the place was heaving with gammerurs and was the first place I'd ever seen them when I was a kid. Pick a stone up out of the water on the fieldside and it nearly walked out of your hand. The fly hatch ever on mild days during the winter could be many 1000s. Summer on a still warm night, many 100,000s. Swan and pea mussels were plentiful and when the water dropped you could see many 100s of swans, sometimes if the water had dropped quickly you'd find beds of peas From the farm down (Dam wall side) to the bottom of the reser towards Little Elton was full of curly pond weed more or less bank to bank in the 80-90s when I piked it. On the fieldside where the point is had several good beds 20 yard by 10 of potamogeton to the left in the bay. I can only assume that from the late 90s when I stopped fishing there had bee catastrophic collapse of the food chain in the reser for some unknown reason. The reser during the winter did become very clear most winter just in time for the arrival of the marauders to take advantage and plunder the stocks.

tigger on 02/09/2012 10:14:46

I can only assume that from the late 90s when I stopped fishing there had bee catastrophic collapse of the food chain in the reser for some unknown reason. The reser during the winter did become very clear most winter just in time for the arrival of the marauders to take advantage and plunder the stocks. Yeah, maybe something happend after you stopped fishing it. I'll ask my m8 about it next time I see him.

Cliff Hatton 2 on 02/09/2012 19:19:35

My brother and I were quite thrilled to see a shag sitting on a mid-water perch in the Thames near Sonning in 1972, so much so I photographed it. Like Geoff Maynard, I've spent most of my life outdoors, fishing all over the country, but until around 1990 I saw very, very few cormorants. On one pit in the Lea Valley the 3-400 strong mobs of cormorants are as skilled as synchronized swimmers, systematically rounding-up and cornering roach shoals before frenziedly slaughtering them. Ultimately though, its down to Man's greed and shameful, useless government - what's wrong with a 3 year ban on trawling? Come 2015 we'd be astonished at the comeback, I bet.

Rod on 06/09/2012 07:41:25

I note in the above comments the various debates about cormorant sub-species identification and numbers of birds present in the UK, and so on. There is in fact a mine of interesting scientific information on this particular species, and of course many others, on the website of the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). The BTO have assured me, by the way, that they welcome anglers as members, and indeed have a fair number of keen anglers on their own staff. As an organisation they recognise that angling makes a positive contribution to conservation.

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