Boy, the controversy over this one is huge! The few comments left on the original article were pretty severe against the cormorants. The authors wanted them all exterminated. Their points seem valid-the cormorants are eating all the fish and ruining the fishing tourism and the town’s livelihoods. The advocates for the cormorants say that it isn’t true that the cormorants eat all the fish and destroy habitats. They say the birds eat mostly alewife, yellow perch, gizzard and round gobies, mostly undesirable fish. In Canada the birds are treated as a nonnative species when in fact, the birds have been seen in the Great Lakes as early as the late 1800’s. Their numbers decreased in the 1950-1960’s due to the use of DDT, but they have been making a slow recovery back to numbers that are large, but not near as large as what was seen in the early last century. Scientific studies are being conducted in the US to determine the effect these birds are having (if any) on the environment. According to Cormorant Defenders International, the Canadian government is not using science to decide what to do about the birds. They have strong supporters for eliminating them.

Photo from zoocheck.com

Last update: July 14, 2008 - 10:55 PM

StarTribune.com

Researchers in Voyageurs National Park are studying double-crested cormorants.

The fish-eating bird's population has gone from threatened to booming in just two decades.

Radio transmitters are being used on the birds to find out where they eat, how many spend the summer on Lake Kabetogama and how they fit in the park's ecosystem.

Cormorants had been in the region for centuries, but they were mostly wiped out by the 1950s. The chemical DDT, along with being threatened by commercial fishermen and hunters, led to their decline.

But then cormorants gained protection under a federal migratory bird treaty and made a comeback. Some say there are now too many that are fouling the islands and eating fish that anglers are after.