Cormorants

The Great Crested Grebe became almost extinct at one stage (Victorian times, I think) due to the popularity of Grebe feathers in ladies' hats. As fashion changed so the G.C. Grebe staged a comeback, and as recent as 15 years ago there were G.C.Grebes on virtually every water I fished. Now, this is not so. Quite apart from the fact that G.C.Grebes and cormorants compete for food, there's a territorial aspect involved in that each breeding pair of G.C.Grebes requires about 5 acres of water. Cormorants move in, G.C.Grebes move out - as the RSPB would realise if they examined the situation objectively.

I once met someone who worked in the RSPB membership rectruitment office, and pointed out the above to her. "Oh, our members would be upset if they knew Great Crested Grebes were affected," she said.

I explained that some of us have been trying to point this out for a long time, but the RSPB has been too obtuse to see beyond the narrow confines of its blinkered view.

Not that the RSPB are alone in this regard, an official of Maidstone Victory Angling Club told me that "The effects of cormorant predation are greatly exaggerated."

What can I say....?

For every wise man there are ten pillocks Jim, you just met two of them.

On cormorants - quote from 'RSPB Guide to British Birds' (c 1975) by David Saunders - "Distribution Resident with colonies scattered along all coasts except between south-east Yorkshire and the Isle of Wight."

Where then, do the 160 come from that nest on our Buckinghamshire lake?

On Ivan Marks - Quote "He's blinkin' good and what a lovely man." - Peter Stone, on meeting him.

If Ivan hadn't been a matchman, he'd have been an unbeatable specimen angler.

Sooner or later we will get a real winter. Weeks, even months when all our inland waters will be frozen over.

The cormorants will die from starvation. The millions of toy carp will die from suffocation.

The river fish will survive.

Good!!

Ivan Marks is the greatest match angler of all time!

a load of cormorants like to eat the fish at a local gravel pit in berks

You might find it interesting to read this debate from the other side.

Starting with the most recent,

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=25256

there's a couple of links on there which go to lots more of the same, fortunately there are a few anglers on there as well but some of the beliefs and comments are sadly predictable.

Here's a few samples:-

why should they fill the rivers with fish just to insert barbs down their throats,

I'm not convinced that Cormorants cause the dmage that is claimed. Most of the 'damage' is caused by humans mis-managing the environment in the first place.

I haven't seen any evidence that Cormorants are having a negative impact on wild freshwater fish, only man stocked ponds.

The bottom line is that any species, such as the cormorant, which predates for survival will take advantage of the easiest sources of food, whether it is a commercial fishery with 1000LB+ of fish per acre, a gravel pit, or a stretch of river with a huge head silver fish.

As such, if (and its a big IF) we get a 'proper' winter the cormorants will just go back to hunting in the sea, I dont believe they will all starve Ron!

The number of birds I saw on the sea last night was unreal, but then again the winter whiting are well on their way so there is plenty of food, also there are no true commercials within 20 miles of where I live!

From someone who has actually given an angling talk for a local RSPB group (I`m also a twitcher), believe me, the RSPB is not as blinked as you would expect, indeed many members are also keen natural historians and anglers. Indeed I attended a meeting a few years ago when a regionally well known lepidoctera gave an excellent talk and slide presentation on butterflies and moths, he happend to slip in a derogatory comment about an area of water he was surveying, in which anglers had allegely complained about his activities, anglers complain about most things he said? I jumped in like immediately and being known to the group recieved much support. From my experience, the general membership of the RSPB don`t have a problem with angling or anglers, a misguided few who have some measure of control however, some at least appear to be ingnorant of certain factors. weither these people are influential or not remains to be seen?

There does appear to be a noticeable decline of cormorants on my local river this year.
During a car journey over most of the rivers of Northumberland last weekend travelling up to Scotland I must have seen, pleasingly, at least one heron from every vantage point.

Unfortunately that was the extent of my pleasures that weekend, once at the hotel I staggered into bed and stayed there until the Sunday morning. Not yet fully recovered from the flu bug.


My brother-in-law, who's 25th wedding party we went up there for, used to work for the RSPB but very soon became disillusioned with their cranky attitudes.
He is now the Chief Officer with Fyfe for Parks, Libraries and Leisure in the region AND putting a lot of work into trying to create non trout fishing facilities.

Amen to your prayer, Ron.

I have a foot in both birding and fishing camps too. A few thoughts in no particular order. Killing 2000 to 3000 cormorants per year will in my view accomplish very little in terms of bringing a sustained and material reduction in fish losses as more cormorants will find their way in from Europe to replace those culled. Why? Firstly because it's a small percentage of the popultaion. Secondly, because we humans have nearly emptied the north sea (over fishing/pollution/global warming, etc.etc) and cormorants will adapt their behaviour to compensate for this loss of suitable habitat, in this case by wintering inland until they've eaten everything they can readily catch.
The RSPB has been fighting the conservation battle for over a century, let's all be grateful.. it's hardly surprising that there is a reactionary attitude about it when culls are proposed. However, by denying what has been obvious to anglers for years re. cormorants, they are being disingenuous and risk alienating a large and important group who are naturally conservation allies. The leadership of both groups have failed for years to recognise that more unites us than divides us. A pity, because this issue will cause a lot of angst, but in my view will ultimately fail to deliver any real and sustained benefits.

John, 25 weddings eh! He must be some man your brother in law

I, he drink's Iron Brew.

Andy Stafford

A lucid, balanced and authoritative contribution, Andy.

While I can find nothing in your comments which which to disagree, I think you might be overlooking the fact that if attempts are undertaken to shoot cormorants (whether the birds are killed or not), the waters on which that occurs will become inhospitable cormorant-environments. This in turn is likely to result in cormorants learning to avoid that water. Actually, I know it works because I've seen it happen in practice (needless to say, unofficially - ahem!).

So while a 2000-3000 bird cull may not have much overall effect (but then again, it's bound to have SOME effect), it will certainly have an effect on specific waters.

Jim, Thanks for your kind words. I think it's correct to say that temporary relief from cormorant predation at the local level can be obtained by regular shooting, or indeed "shooing and arm waving (on smaller waters)". It's a bit like fitting an alarm box to the front of your house, it has as much to do with crime displacement as prevention.

My field experience of this is that regular disturbance (however caused) encourages the birds to move away. However, if the lake is left undisturbed for very long, they will always find their way back so long as the food source remains. Perhaps the fact that fewer of us go winter carp fishing nowadays has allowed cormorants onto more waters?

As for a lasting solution addressing the cause rather than effect.. well, how do you restore the oceans to their former glory? I can feel a new thread coming on...

Finally, birders generally don't seem to like cormorants very much as a species. I've heard them referred to as the black plague. Definitely not a bird to drive very far to see for most of us. Lucky for anglers that kingfishers are as small as they are!

Andy, good question, "How do we restore the oceans to their former glory?" Goodness only knows, but on a more parochial level we might learn from the Norwegians (they enforced a Norwegians-only fishing policy off their coast which led to the restoration of their herring-fishing industry). They then regulated their own fishing fleet with draconian restrictions and limits.

Our membership of the EEC precludes us doing anything similar, of course, but don't blame me - I didn't want us to join the EEC in the first place...

As a keen sea angler, this issue matters enormously to me - but I'll resist the temptation to "go off on one" because this particular discussion is not the appropriate place.

Meanwhile, let's give a cormorant cull a serious trial, and review the situation after we've shot 3000 of the damn things.

Could have bagged half a dozen today.

Mind you, I was hoping that one or two of the aircraft landing at Heathrow would have sucked some in. One came ever so close!

Damn, I've done it again, just 5 mins on the web before I cut the grass, what the hell, will do it tomorrow !.
What a fine set of exchanges between Jim and Andy, both balanced and both making valid points, its a hard one to be sure about, control is the obvious quick fix, but are we just driving the birds off one water to the next ??, until they settle on a little or unfished water.
A 440 acre mere just up the road from my home has a large head of cormorants, you never see them fishing in the public area's of the mere, they roost in the out of bounds area's (bird reserve's I think).
We do need controls, but we must try and restore the balance of the sea's, gone have the days of picking up 200 sand eels at low water, long gone, and don't get me on the subject of Cod.
We must also consider the full effects of a bird cull, would'nt the anti's love it, "Angler's driving force behind mass killing" all over the press, "Kingfisher's next on hit list", it may not happen, but we all know the press, if it sells papers that's fine, they don't seem too bothered about all the fact's, do they ?.
A lot of the issue's needed to protect our fish stock's have to be driven by the goverment, we need to bombard them on issue's like the recent pollution incidents caused by raw sewage, the Big companies get fined a few ?1000s, nothing, peanuts!!, 1 days profits, maybe.
We must restore our sea's, god help us on this one, with the EEC making the rules, how many millions of sand eels have been caught by our euro partner's, and milled down for pig meal.
Yes preditation is a problem, but would'nt it be nice if we could fix it by redressing the balance of nature, and not by getting too focused on one issue, its not that long ago I used to see silver fish anglers chucking Jacks up the bank.
don't be too rough on me, I do fear the media and we could be there next target....

Couldn't agree more with you with Andy - as much as some anglers don't like to admit it, there are many anglers who are members of both fishing and bird preservation organisations. I'm one.

I've not not met too many birders so my comments probably come from a more narrow point of view. Most of those that I have have understood (at least paid lip service to) our angling fears over the cormorant issue but have also had their own fears on the effect they have on our indigenous inland fish eating birds (grebes, herons etc).

I met a chap from the RSPB on one of my local lakes years ago (known in the bird community as a mini-Slimbridge) who had attended a conference somewhere in Scandinavia regarding cormorants among other things. His worry along with a lot of his fellow birders was that if they were to start nesting in-land then a lot of our indigenous species would be under threat. They now do and so other birds are under threat as Barrie has noticed locally to him.

I agree with Andy for asking for the RSPB's conservation efforts to be recognised and also with Gary about past bias regarding pike.

We need to work together and address all of our issues with no distrust of each others interests. It has to be said that an awful lot of bias some birders feel towards anglers is due after some bad practices which have seen quite a few birds needing immediate attention after being found tangled up with line, hooks and weights etc. I've seen this with my own eyes and frequently have my wife getting on my back about such things. It's not surpising that these same people will feel strongly about a cormorant cull. To some it will appear that it's another action being carried out against a creature by what they see as an uncaring collection of anglers.

I'm not sure I feel any sympathy towards commercial fisheries and their losses of their overstocked carp etc. The fishing out of the North Sea has been an ongoing concern for many years and the migration of these seabirds inland didn't use to be such a problem until these heavily stocked 'sweetie shops' started to become the norm around the land. Unfortunately once the cormorants made it here they have no worries about emptying rivers too and now action is needed. It would be lovely if as Gary says, we could redress the balance natures way but we seem to have blown it once again don't we?

Yes Nige, I think we have messed up again.