# Cormorants Eat Virtually The Entire Thunder Bay Biomass



## USST164 (May 6, 2008)

From the Bay City Times via the Marquette Mining Journal.

OSCODA, Mich. (AP)  State wildlife managers said theyre launching a more aggressive strategy on thinning cormorant flocks by targeting Lake Hurons two largest nesting colonies. 


Cormorants are dark-feathered birds with wingspans that can reach 4 feet. Biologists blame their voracious fish appetite for depleting certain fisheries. Critics have said their presence has hurt tourism and fishing from the western Upper Peninsula to the northern Lower Peninsula. 


The Bay City Times reported Saturday that managers plan to reduce the birds breeding flocks by about two-thirds at colonies on Thunder Bay near Alpena and on the eastern U.P.s Les Cheneaux Islands. Officials will either shoot adult birds or oil eggs in nests to prevent them from hatching. 


On Thunder Bay, researchers said the migratory bird has devastated whitefish and stocked brown trout. 


Virtually all the fish biomass in Thunder Bay was being allocated to feeding cormorants by 2004, said Jim Johnson, fisheries research biologist and manager for the DNRs Alpena research station. 


Even by 2003 our estimates showed they were eating more fish biomass that we even knew existed in Thunder Bay. The numbers were astounding, Johnson said. 


This years liberalized kills arent the only strategy aimed at managing cormorants on Lake Huron. Trained crews started harassment projects this month to scare the birds from concentrations of vulnerable fish. 


The cormorants, now in peak migration, are descending on state waterways in the thousands to rest and feed as the journey to their northern breeding islands. 


Well see 5,000 cormorants coming through there on their way north, said Steve Sendek, the DNRs Au Sable River fisheries biologist. The idea is to keep the birds moving so they dont gobble the fish at the get-go. The fishery this planting will generate down the road, and its income for local businesses, is too important. 


Though cormorants are protected by an international migratory bird treaty, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined in 2003 that states could curb their numbers if they were harming natural resources.


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## USST164 (May 6, 2008)

To point out the other side , just Google the words " stop culling cormorants ".

What is really amazing is some of the words animal rights nut jobs use , are the same words to attack licensed hunters.

Two of the major lies being perpetrated on the general public is the notion that cormorants are native to the Great Lakes, which they are not.

The latest twist to the propaganda is , cormorants only eat gobies and other invasive fish. Thats not what the Detroit Free Press had to say.


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## USST164 (May 6, 2008)

Angler says he's catching them while trolling.

*Wildlife managers thinning cormorant flocks near Oscoda, in U.P.*

*by Helen Lounsbury | The Bay City Times Saturday May 03, 2008, 7:46 AM
*OSCODA - As double-crested cormorants swarm back to Michigan this month, wildlife managers say they're launching a more aggressive strategy to cut the fish-eating birds' numbers. Plans to thin cormorant flocks statewide target Lake Huron's two largest nesting colonies: on Thunder Bay near Alpena and on the eastern U.P.'s Les Cheneaux Islands.
There, managers plan to reduce the birds' breeding flocks by about two-thirds.

The increased kills come as fish biologists gather new proof that the cormorant - best known for its voracious fish appetite - has ravaged certain localized fisheries. On Northeast Lower Michigan's Thunder Bay, for example, researchers say the migratory bird has devastated white fish and stocked brown trout. 
Adult cormorants eat about a pound of fish daily.
"Virtually all the fish biomass in Thunder Bay was being allocated to feeding cormorants by 2004," said Jim Johnson, fisheries research biologist and manager for the DNR's Alpena research station. "Even by 2003 our estimates showed they were eating more fish biomass that we even knew existed in Thunder Bay. The numbers were astounding."

Further north, on the Upper Peninsula's Les Cheneaux Islands, state and federal agents aim to thin nesting cormorants by more than 60 percent - from an estimated 1,400 pairs to just 500. 
There, as in Thunder Bay, fisheries biologists now say conclusively what they would not say previously: The double-crested cormorant is chief culprit in the demise of the Les Cheneaux region's historically abundant yellow perch.
"Manage the birds and you get fish. It's a pretty simple formula," Johnson said of Les Cheneaux control efforts. "We're using the Les Cheneaux response as a template in Thunder Bay. We believe we can follow the pattern here."

For the birds, the "pattern" involves shooting 1,000 adult cormorants and, as island nesting progresses, oiling eggs in all accessible nests. The treatment suffocates the embryo, eliminating reproduction in almost every case, biologists say.
While the accelerated controls please anglers, not all endorse the approach, particularly not the permitted kills. The Michigan Nature Association, for example, owns three Thunder Bay islands and refuses state agents island access. The roadblock inhibits cormorant control efforts, but the association and other project critics contend the state shouldn't interfere with nature.



Researchers have a ready response.
"Cormorant numbers are anything but natural," Johnson emphasizes. "They're invasive numbers. People tell me, 'Let nature take its course.' But the system's not natural anymore. Invasive species allowed the cormorant to reach these numbers. To let 'nature' go is to let invasive species take their course."

Johnson refers to dozens of non-native species entering the Great Lakes, primarily via ships' ballasts, and forever changing the lakes' ecology. In the case of cormorants, the invasive alewife created an artificially abundant, Great Lakes food base that helped the bird rebound after near extinction in the early 1970s. Zebra mussels, too, devour Great Lakes plankton giving the water an unnatural clarity for the diving cormorant to better prey on fish.



"I'm glad the cormorant showed it can recover," said Dan Sendo, an avid Tawas City angler who fishes across Northeast Lower Michigan and the U.P. "But when I'm catching the birds on my lures, out in deep water, I think we're past them being an endangered species. I think we need to keep their numbers in check."
This year's liberalized kills aren't the only strategy aimed at managing cormorants on Lake Huron. Trained crews started harassment projects this month to scare the birds from concentrations of vulnerable fish. The cormorants, now in peak migration, are descending on Michigan waterways in the thousands to rest and feed as the journey to their northern breeding islands.
One such harassment project is under way in Oscoda, home to Lake Huron's largest steelhead planting. In the Au Sable River shallows, the DNR finished stocking 150,000 steelhead this week, creating a lavish buffet for the cormorant's migrating flocks.
But this year, as last year, volunteers keep vigil, firing flare guns with shotgun-like blasts to scare the birds from the young trout. Crews are authorized to shoot only the most persistent cormorants, to reinforce the message. Their harassment effort wraps up in about two weeks, when the steelhead disperse from river to open lake.
"We'll see 5,000 cormorants coming through there on their way north," says Steve Sendek, the DNR's Au Sable River fisheries biologist. "The idea is to keep the birds moving so they don't gobble the fish at the get-go. The fishery this planting will generate down the road, and its income for local businesses, is too important."
Inland, too, on Long Lake and Grand Lake near Alpena, for example, volunteers hit the water this month to keep migrating cormorants from gorging on local fish.
The control projects are the outcome of years of public hearings, of solicited and unsolicited comments from outraged fishermen, and of federal environmental impact statements on the controversial cormorant. In 2003, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service granted Michigan and 23 states some management authority over the protected bird. The next year, lethal controls went into practice on the Les Cheneaux Islands via coordinated efforts by the USDA's Wildlife Services and the Michigan DNR. In 2005, the same agencies put lethal controls to work on Thunder Bay.
Just three years into the experiment, Les Cheneaux Islands shows signs of a resurgent perch fishery, researchers say. While still fragile, the turnaround has wildlife managers setting "end point goals" for cormorant populations that balance a healthy fishery.
For Les Cheneaux, that goal is 500 breeding pairs, down from the 5,500 counted in 2003, managers say. For Thunder Bay, 450 breeding pairs - the cormorants' 1989 population - is the magic number. This year, they'll aim to bring that number down from last fall's count of 2,100 pairs to 1,000 pairs.
"I don't think any of us expected to see so dramatic a shift so soon" in either the fishery resurgence or the cormorant reduction, said Pete Butchko, Michigan director for the USDA's Wildlife Services program. "It's too soon to declare victory in the areas we're working. But early signs of recovery tell us we're headed in the right direction, faster than we expected."


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## USST164 (May 6, 2008)

Canadian resource managers win a court battle to cull cormorants based on the destructive nature cormorants guano.

*Canadian cormorant shooting cull at 72*


WINDSOR, Ontario, May 2 (UPI) -- Canadian environmental officials reported killing 72 double-crested cormorants in a campaign to save a southwestern Ontario island from their droppings.

The controversial shooting campaign began Wednesday in a bid to reduce the colony on Lake Erie's Middle Island from 4,026 nests to between 438 and 876 nests, the Windsor Star reported.

Point Pelee National Park superintendent Marian Stranak said there would be no shooting Friday "to give the birds a break," the newspaper said.

Stranak said most of the birds killed were collected for research by the Canadian Wildlife Service for research, while others were left on the ground to decompose so vegetation isn't damaged.

The federal Environment Canada agency won a court ruling earlier this year in its bid to reduce the cormorant population. The agency claimed guano from the birds is ruining the island's ecosystem.

The federal plan is to kill thousands of cormorants over five years to reach population levels where the guano won't diminish native flora, the report said.


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