NEWSFLASH: Cormorants eat fish!

Let's get this on the record, I think the Angling Trust does a great job and I’m happy we work so closely with them on so many watery issues through the Blueprint for Water. But like most friends they do seem to have peculiar peccadilloes, and in the Angling Trust’s case its their single minded pursuit of the cormorant where we might fall out.

Of course, this bird eats fish.  In fact, like some other species of bird – kingfishers and ospreys, to name but two – this bird likes eating fish so much, it eats them pretty much to the exclusion of all else.  It won’t surprise you, then, to learn (if you didn’t know already) that, like the kingfisher and osprey, this bird is extremely good at fishing.  

Unfortunately, unlike that of the kingfisher and osprey, the fishing prowess of this particular bird – the cormorant – is not universally admired.  To a cormorant, an angling lake stocked full of fish is much like a bird table to a blue tit – a feast to be harvested.  Understandably this can make the cormorant an unwelcome visitor to such fisheries, where income is reliant on the availability of catchable fish. 

1,779 cormorants were particularly unwelcome in England in 2010.   That’s how many were shot under licence that year to prevent serious damage to fisheries and inland waters.  Does that number surprise you?  Did you know that cormorants can be shot, legally, to protect the interests of fisheries?

They can.  Acknowledging that these otherwise protected birds can, in some circumstances, cause serious damage to some fisheries, both European and domestic law permit the killing of cormorants provided certain conditions are met.  To my mind, these conditions are perfectly reasonable – there must be a genuine problem to resolve, there must be no other satisfactory solution (to killing) available, killing must present an effective solution, and killing must not have an adverse effect on the conservation status of the species in question.  In short, killing is an action of last resort, the justification of which can only be determined on a case-by-case basis.     

In England, when it comes to cormorants, these principles of wildlife licensing are not applied as rigorously as we would like.  In 2004, the evidence requirements were relaxed to such an extent that fishery managers need only demonstrate the presence of cormorants at a fishery to qualify as (potentially) suffering serious damage due to cormorants.  This is a markedly different – i.e. decidedly more lenient – licensing approach to that adopted for other bird species in England (and the rest of the UK).

Isn’t it extraordinary, then, that there are calls to make it even easier to kill cormorants?  This species has always been present inland in Britain – the increase in the inland population has in fact occurred over many years, reflecting a recovery from the effects of historical persecution (and, quite probably, the increase in attractive feeding sites stocked with fish!)  As I’ve mentioned in a previous blog, a review is underway in England of the licensing regime for fish-eating birds, including cormorants.  We hope that in deciding the future of this native species, Defra takes heed of its own research, which found no case for large-scale control of this bird.  Furthermore, it found that non-lethal approaches to reducing predation by cormorants, such as fish refuges, exist and are effective.  When such sustainable, non-contentious measures are available, why should anyone reach for the gun?

While we will continue to defend the right and proper protection offered to the cormorant I hope we can continue to work with the Angling Trust on the things that really matter to rivers and fisheries like unsustainable abstraction drought and pollution.

What do you think?

It would be great to hear your views.