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Double-crested Cormorants |
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May 2010: The cormorant slaughter on Middle Island (Point Pelee) is officially over. Thousands of birds have been killed. Click on the following link to read the document "A Day at Middle Island Defending the Cormorants". The Issue: Human persecution and pesticide poisoning drove Double-crested cormorants to the brink of extinction. Remarkably, this magnificent native water bird has rebounded and is now repopulating parts of its former range in the United States and Canada. Unfortunately, many people view the return of cormorants as abnormal and claim that cormorant populations are out of control. Nothing could be further from the truth. A great deal of misinformation about cormorants has been spread by anglers and wildlife managers fuelling an organized war against the birds on both sides of the border. Cormorant Defenders International (CDI), of which Animal Alliance is a part, was formed to respond to the assault on cormorants and to respond to the many erroneous claims made about them. The most significant threat to Double-crested cormorants are the very agencies charged with their protection. In Canada, those agencies are Point Pelee National Park & Parks Canada and Presqu'ile Provincial Park & the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR). Parks Canada and the OMNR oversee three locations that are home to Ontario's largest cormorant colonies. Parks Canada controls Middle Island in Lake Erie, while the ONMR controls East Sister Island in Lake Erie and High Bluff Island in Lake Ontario. The cormorant colony on Middle Island, a tiny island in Lake Erie that became part of Point Pelee National Park in 2000, is threatened. A mass kill of the island's naturally occurring Double-crested cormorant population began in 2008 and will continue for a number of years. The plan to aggressively cull the birds on the island was scheduled to be in full swing in 2008, but a CDI legal challenge in federal court delayed it considerably, resulting in less than 250 birds being killed, instead of the many thousands that were originally targeted. CDI representatives observed the cull from boats positioned next to Middle Island and from a land-based station on neighbouring Pelee Island. In 2009, the cull resulted in the deaths of approximately 600 birds. The park claims the kill is necessary to save Middle Island's vegetation, but changes to the composition of vegetation are part of the natural process of succession experienced wherever colonial birds are found. The cormorants pose no threat whatsoever to the survival of any plant or animal species, and Middle Island is one of the few locations available where cormorants can colonize. In 2008, Presqu'ile Provincial Park proposed a new cull of the cormorant colony on High Bluff Island that will take place over the next 10 years. The park claims the cormorants are destoying the island and wiping out a unique forest environment, but their claims lack scientific legitimacy. The proposed cull is the subject of an Environmental Assessment process. Double-crested cormorants are a native Ontario water bird and a part of the natural ecology of Middle Island and High Bluff Island, both world renowned bird sanctuaries. The proposals to manage them are ill-conceived, short sighted, a waste of resources and enormously cruel. To help the Middle Island cormorants, raise this issue today with Environment Canada Minister Jim Prentice! Let him know that the proposal to slaughter cormorants on Middle Island, part of Point Pelee National Park, must be stopped. Tell him cormorants are a part of the natural ecology of Middle Island and that it should be allowed to evolve in a natural way. Remind him that their is no way to humanely kill large numbers of birds in the field and that doing so is an archaic, destructive and cruel method of wildlife management that has no scientific or ecological justification. The Honourable Jim Prentice To help the cormorants who nest at Presqu'ile Provincial Park, contact Ontario's Natural Resources Minister Donna Cansfield and Premier Dalton McGuinty. Minister Cansfield Tel: 416-314-2201
The Honourable Dalton McGuinty For more information, visit www.zoocheck.com/cormorant. A video entitled Cormorants in the Great Lakes: Dispelling the Myths is available for download. |