I find it a bit strange that it's only cormorants getting this bad press - after all, we've had terns on our rivers, and gulls everywhere, for as long as I can remember, neither of which are naturally freshwater species... is it because cormorants eat bigger fish? I mean, I've noticed that terns in particular are very adept at catching small fish, denying them the opportunity to GET bigger, but they never get mentioned...
I'm afraid I have to side with the cormorants (etc) here - don't get me wrong, I don't LIKE seeing them on my local waters, but given the choice, they'd rather be back on the coast; the reason they came inland in the first place is because we've decimated their feeding grounds, literally starving them inland... Maybe if we were to clamp down on the massive over-fishing of our seafish, these birds would return to their natural habitats. It's all too easy to blame the cormorants - the real problem lies a lot closer to home...