I want to make people aware that anglers want to be able to shoot cormorants at will, even if they are just flying or sitting near by. They want a law past so they can do this and I strongly disagree. I would like to start a protect the cormorant society from anglers as they are just living their lives as they should. Anglers as a collective havent a leg to stand on. They may have these fish filled ponds created which serve birds well but they them selves are the cause of many birds deaths. They catch fish for fun and are hating on cormorants (just cormorants) for over fishing their lakes. Well I say this is wrong. Cormorants are more native than anglers and fish to survive not for sport, how can that be a sport, if it is its a blood sport. But why hate the cormorant because it can fish better than them, they should save the thousands they spend each year and do something worth while with it, not harm innocent fish and birds. This subject makes me angry as I love seeing the cormorants where I live in shoreham west sussex, they spend most their time just sitting high up on light towers down the harbour or on old bits of wood down wide water lagoon. Its nice to see they have young juveniles with them this year, white bellied and all. I would hate to see them become endangered because of some grumpy, jealous ill temepered fishermen. I hope to see them in the future and I would like others to witness them as they are beautiful to see at rest, either with wings out drying or head tucked in. Their bumbling flight pattern is amazing to follow as they look so cumbersome in flight. I would like to think their are others out there who agree with me and i would like to hear your opinions.
Sunrider. Can I just come in and say as a non fisherman, I agree with what you have written here. Generalising and castigating everyone doesn't work for me. I presume as this angry young man is now showing as anonymous his request to delete his account has been complied with.
The Cotswold Water park sightings website
My Flicker page
Think it is a massive problem for people who have spent lots of money digging lakes,stocking them with native fish admittedly at heavy rates for anglers.
They have a business to maintain and there are so many anglers who enjoy a day fishing on these lakes for relatively modest money also they are doing relatively trouble free hobby,never heard of any hooliganism or being drunk and putting stress on NHS.
Cannot see any way these lake owners can protect their business except when necessary getting a licence and cull some.
Think some have had to spend £10,000 on fencing to keep Otters out.
Lets face facts rspb must surely cull some things when they think it necessary so why is their judgement any different to other parts of society.
These fish in question are all native fish.
I am not a angler by the way.I do sympathise however with someone whose business could be ruined.
Sooty, thanks for your comments.
Once again I do not doubt that it costs money for the fishing lake to stock the lake, the fish are probably a mixture of native and non native, most fish stocked in lakes these days are carp or hybrids of carp which are not native, which fish species is being stocked in your local fishing lake? I wouldn't call these Carp or Carp hybrids part of the ecosystem just because they are swimming free in a lake that they cannot leave....the whole point is that they stay in there, get big for people to catch.
However, the lake itself does serve the environment well, as I said, my local fishing lake allows a range of wildlife to live, feed and breed on it and if it weren't there then there could be something worse in its place like a shopping centre.
Also the rod licenses from anglers do go back into the environment too so once again I can see the value to angling for wildlife.
All I was making the point is that the Environment Agency are doing there very best to try and advocate non lethal methods first, its worth trying and much better than reaching straight for lethal methods and the RSPB advocate this too (which I did say). We are also not against lethal measures should all non lethal methods fail (which I did say too) so our judgement is not different.
Another issue would be where do you stop, if a fishing lake has 2-3 "problem" Cormorants coming down to the lake, they are taking fish, non lethal measures aren't working and they apply for a license to legally remove them, what happens if 2-3 more then move in and take their place?
As we all know any healthy environment can support an apex predator. The Otters favourite food is the eel, population crashed by 95% due to introduction of a fluke carried by the Japanese eel that was imported here alive by the food trade, next favourite food is 4-6" fish, if fish can't spawn you get no small fish coming through so Otters resort to eating the older bigger fish hence coming into conflict with anglers and the same could be said for Cormorants. For both of these apex predators to continue hunting our river systems we need to tackle the problems in our environment, the Signal Crayfish eating all the small fry is one of the major problems as well as pollution etc.
It's about living in harmony with wildlife as best we can, unfortunately in this heavily populated country with so many interests that now conflict with wildlife (chicken farming, pheasant rearing, fishing lakes etc) it is fast becoming a problem but luckily there are lots of good people working very hard to find solutions so neither the wildlife nor the people involved are seriously damaged.
For those who are really interested in this subject (I am because I absolutely love Cormorants - if you have seen my Flickr site you will see this!) but I also have 2-3 really good friends who are anglers and often we get into good discussions about this, you might want to have a read of these:
www.intercafeproject.net/.../Cormorants_and_the_European_Environment_web_version.pdf
www.intercafeproject.net/.../Field_Manual_web_version.pdf
www.intercafeproject.net/.../Cormorant_Toolbox_web_version.pdf
If you are interested in seeing my Cormorant photographs please have a look here: www.flickr.com/.../72157637932892125
They are all taken in the London parks which surprisingly support a good population of Cormorants, its funny because these birds are in the parks nearly all year round, they fish in the waters of both Hyde and Regents Park all day long, they take small fish as well as the odd large one. The lakes in these parks are NOT re-stocked, yet for the past 5 years I have watched Cormorants fish the lakes....for an inner city park where fish are not artificially added it is great to see that they can support the Cormorants, it just goes to show that something right must be happening here and clearly the Cormorants are not wiping out the entire fish stock.
The birds only take what they need and from my experience in an average fishing session for a Cormorant they must dive and not catch anything 9/10 times, the various fish refuges around the park clearly work.
Ben A,your comments are very interesting and although I am a bird lover I do have some serious doubts about Cormorants.
I remember a local paper around 1976 having a photo and letter from a bird lover saying this is a photo of a Cormorant,never been seen this far(about 40 miles)inland before in this area anyway.While I obviously understand they have taken advantage of easier food it does seem it is a relative new approach by them.
Local fishing lakes out of about 7 are stocked with,Rudd,Bream,Tench,Pike and other native fish.
Think this thing about Carp not native must be very debatable as the old monastery fish ponds were stocked with Carp and even if they were imported 500 years ago then at some point they are usually considered natives,certainly in humans one generation usually suffices.
However the local fishery does have two of the 7 lakes as specimen Carp lakes and ironically these are no problem as far as Cormorants are concerned as the fish are even much to big for native birds to do anything with.
He has spent I would guess £10,000 to fence and keep Otters out but I cannot see any non lethal way of dealing with Cormorants.
Guess the rspb do things that lots of us disagree with as far as culling things go and my guess is if this local fishery owner gets a licence and controls Cormorants it is not as bad as rspb Arne culling Deer which I assume they do under the guise of keeping numbers down.
Now come on,they are not fenced in and there is plenty of rough land on the Purbeck hills for them to go on so if food got short for them at rspb Arne they would automatically go a few hundred yards then a mile or two to get the food.Cannot see any way they would stay at rspb Arne and suffer from food shortage and starve,no survival instinct would kick in and they would move.
We should all come under the same judgement.
Sooty, I would argue the opposite, culling a native bird such as Cormorant because it is eating fish that are being placed in a lake for people to catch for a hobby is far worse than culling non native deer because they are damaging important native habitat.
However, I am happy to accept your comments and move on, hope you can do the same.
And I would like to hear your comments on the links I have provided once you get the chance to have a read, you say you cannot see a non lethal way of dealing with Cormorants but the EA have produced a document which deals with this very subject, what do you think to the methods they suggest?
However, once again and I have said this twice now, as an organisation we are not against those fisheries with a problem using the licensing system available to them.
Ben A,as you have asked what I think to the environment document that is what I will do before moving on.
Actually it all sounds typical technical political writing that in practice has no application and would not work on most inland lake fisheries.
Worse still the idea of cutting lots of roosting trees down is criminal.
I have no problem myself as far as Cormorants concerned and local fishery manager is in general a very big supporter of wildlife and general public enjoying his lakes as well as anglers.
Ironically if I really say what I think about the Deer culling at Arne then mods will ban me from the forum and by so doing that of course the rspb gets a soft forum and will not learn to use non lethal methods.Wonder if you have ever been to Arne and researched the fact you quote of damaging native habitat.
Will move on but you could always email me if you are interested in the Deer question.
Sooty, this thread is clearly not about deer control at Arne. I am sorry that you feel the forum will become soft if the moderators continue to act on violations of our terms and conditions. As has been said many times before, we have no objections to people discussing a whole host of topics, what we do object to is when posts are disruptive or air personal or organisational grievances.