Fall cormorant hunt widely applauded 
8/5/20
'They will definitely eat walleye' 
......
The province will introduce a fall hunting season for double-crested cormorants starting in September in an attempt to protect fish stocks and natural habitats.
Natural Resources and Forestry Minister John Yakabuski made the announcement Friday in Fenelon Falls, northwest of Peterborough, following a series of public consultations dating back to 2018.
The bird can eat up to a pound of fish a day and nests on the ground and in trees on islands and in peninsulas.
It’s known to damage vegetation with its droppings, or guano, due to its acidity which, in turn, can affect nesting habitats for other colonial waterbirds.
The cormorant also has been cited as a possible cause behind declining fish stocks in Lake Nipissing.
We’ve heard concerns from property owners, hunters and anglers, and commercial fishers about the kind of damage cormorants have caused in their communities, so we’re taking steps to help them deal with any local issues,” Yakabuski said.
The hunting season will run annually from
Sept. 15 to Dec. 31.Yakabuski says a fall season will avoid interference with recreational users of waterways and nesting periods for some migratory birds.
The maximum number of cormorants a hunter can take also has been set at 15 per day, down from 50 initially, similar to the limit set for federally-regulated migratory game birds such as mourning doves, Snow and Ross’s geese, rails, coot, and gallinules.
A survey performed last year by the ministry and partner agencies on cormorant colonies across the Great Lakes and certain inland lakes in Ontario estimated the number of breeding cormorants to be at least
143,000 in 344 colonies.
Combined with historic data, trends suggest populations are increasing in Lake Ontario, Lake Erie and Lake Superior, and are stable on the St. Lawrence River and Lake Huron.
The province says it will continue to monitor the sustainability of the cormorant population. Although some hunters may choose to consume the bird, the province advises those who choose not consume what they harvest to dispose of it properly.
“Growing up in North Bay and spending many summers fishing on Lake Nipissing, I have seen firsthand the issues that cormorants have caused in some local areas,” said Mike Harris, parliamentary assistant to the minister of Natural Resources and Forestry.
“A new fall hunting season
will help communities manage cormorant populations where they have negatively impacted natural habitat and other waterbird species.”
Speaking to The Nugget, Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli said while the size limit for walleye in Lake Nipissing is about 18 inches, or 46 centimetres, “I haven’t been lucky enough to see an 18-inch pickerel in some areas.
“So this cormorant hunting season will protect the fish stock from the harmful impacts of the double-crested cormorant. It’ll also help address the concerns about the local ecosystem,” he said.
The move has received the support of organizations such as the Stinson’s Bay Property Owners Association, Ontario Commercial Fisheries’ Association, Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, Northwestern Ontario Sportsmen’s Alliance and Delta Waterfowl.
Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters resources management specialist Lauren Tonelli says the organization has raised concerns about cormorants for nearly two decades, with many members seeing smaller islands get destroyed over the course of their hunting and fishing seasons.
North Bay, Tonelli says, is on the fringe of where cormorants seem to be expanding, with the area possibly seeing relatively smaller colonies compared to populations down south.
She also notes that while cormorants do eat a lot of fish in a day, there haven’t been good studies on what their impact has been on smaller inland lakes.
“With some of these smaller lakes that don’t have the higher populations for those smaller fish, it’s kind of hard to tell what impact cormorants will have on the fish in those lakes, especially the game fish,” she said.
“They will definitely eat walleye, but the size restriction for what a cormorant eats is fairly small, so it’ll just be juvenile walleye — perch are susceptible because of them being smaller than walleye — but we don’t have really good estimates of what they’re doing to the populations of the smaller lakes.”
Ministry spokesperson Jolanta Kowalski says while the walleye fishery is still very sensitive, surveys indicate that regulatory changes in 2012 and 2014 are protecting a significant number of juvenile walleye from being harvested.
“Do we welcome the change? Absolutely,” Lake Nipissing Stakeholders Association president Scott Nelson said. “I mean, cormorants have been protected to the point where their numbers have grown significantly and there needs to be some controls on them, and so we’re happy that that exists.”
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Topic: Cormorant hunt applauded! (Read 2939 times)
