Fishing…fishing…fishing! It’s the number one outdoor activity
taking place on Lake Nipissing these days. Anyone who fishes this lake knows of
the ongoing saga of the disappearing walleye and pike stocks. The publishers of
recent reports are pointing a collective finger at an unlikely perpetrator.
Could it be that the double crested cormorant has finally been caught with its beak in the cookie jar?
Could it be that the double crested cormorant has finally been caught with its beak in the cookie jar?
To be honest, I knew they were not a
welcomed guest on most popular sport fishing lakes but surely there’s a place
for all of nature’s creatures including the double crested cormorant. After
reading the alarming reports and doing the math my opinion is teetering against
these feathery fish eaters.
First off, the facts: According to an
Environment Canada presentation entitled ‘Cormorants
In The Lower Great Lakes, Kingston, and St. Lawrence River’, one cormorant
consumes one pound of fish (.47kg) per day. Multiply this by the number of days
in an open-water season (May 1st to October 16th/169
days) = 169 pounds of fish per season per cormorant.
According to
our local MNR, Lake Nipissing currently has over 3000 nesting pair of
cormorants, or 6000 adults, (not including non-nesting adults or yearlings).
6000 x 169
days = 1,014,000 feeding days x 1 lb per bird per day = 1,014,000 lbs or 474,700
kgs of fish consumed in a season! Calculations for young-of-the -year cormorants adds another
202,086 kgs per season. That’s a total of over 600,000kgs per season! Granted,
these numbers represent all manner of fish species, but these numbers are still
huge.
For
perspective, the commercial fishery reported hauling in 26,000 kgs of pickerel
last season. The cormorant take is more than 26 times higher than the
allowable recommended take limit for the commercial fishery! Huh? And this is a
conservative estimate! How much of this represents pickerel? It was suggested
that our cormorants likely take more walleye alone than the sport fishing
industry takes in an ice-fishing season.
Did we also
mention the extent of the damage that roosting cormorants wreak on local
vegetation? Their excrement burns and kills anything it touches. Entire islands
and shorelines harboring the rookeries become smelly, barren and lifeless.
HOUSTON, WE HAVE A
PROBLEM!!
OK, so here’s the recommendation of the OFAH
(Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters), for ‘delisting’ double crested
cormorants from the ‘protected’ list:
‘The unnecessary protection afforded
to double crested cormorants, by the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act, should
be removed. This can be accomplished by adding them to the list of species
under section 5 (2)(a) that includes the American crow, brown-headed cowbird,
common grackle, house sparrow, and starling. Please note that these species are
in no way compromised. Fisheries and wildlife management objectives would
determine population management. Over-population of cormorants continues to
decrease benefits, and increase costs associated with fisheries and terrestrial
ecosystem values.’
Well, in the mean time, our own MNR fails to
see our cormorant over-population as an
immediate threat worth acting on. Might I add that several Great Lakes DNR jurisdictions
south of the border already have active cormorant management initiatives in
place with positive results. Folks, over the next several months you’ll see the
LNSA working on this angle to bring the message to the bureaucrats that
something must be done here. If our fishery is really in the state being touted
by the MNR and the biologists, would it not make sense to include a management policy
for such a destructive species to the list of solutions? As a fishing guide, I’m out on the water
quite often, from one end of the lake to the other. Over the past 10 years I’ve
personally witnessed and photographed the steady increase in double crested
cormorants on Lake Nipissing. Their numbers form a dark cloud several acres in
diameter over my head as I approach my guiding areas. And it’s funny actually….how
they seem to be showing up in the same places I’ve always fished. The only
difference?
I throw 99%
of my catch back in the lake!
This topic,
and other important topics about the health, and wellbeing of our Lake
Nipissing community, will be addressed at the LNSA ANNUAL PUBLIC MEETING on May 1st, 2014, 7pm, at the
Callander Community Center.
If you can’t
make it to the meeting, watch for updates on the LNSA website: www.lnsa.net to find out how you can help with
the cormorant problem.