The cormorant conundrum

The cormorant, with its metre-wide wingspan and glossy black feathers is a hard bird to miss on our waterways as it can often be seen with wings fully spread drying itself off. It can stay under water for extended periods and can dive up to great depths. However, as much as the birds entertain visitors to canals and rivers with their antics, they are also causing a problem for fish stocks and have attracted a great number of enemies. The fish-loving bird is the nemesis of most anglers as its greedy ways are said to be depleting fish stocks in many fisheries and inland waters.

Cormorants are not particularly fussy eaters and will feast on eels, roach, perch and trout depending on what’s available to them. While they won’t take more fish than they need they can damage fish by scarring or taking chunks out of them when they fail to catch them. This can in turn make the fish harder to catch by anglers as it can alter their behaviour.

Two sub-species

We have two sub-species of cormorant in this country, the British Carbo and the European Sinensis, which can be distinguished by its whiter head. While the European cormorant appears to be the main offender when it comes to inland fishing, both birds have been native in the UK for a long time according to the RSPB.

Currently cormorants are protected under British and European legislation and while there are provisions to shoot a number of birds as a scarring tactic in order to protect fish stocks , many anglers are not happy with the existing provision of licenses with several calling for a country-wide cull.

Last month Environment Minister Richard Benyon announced that Defra would be holding a review of the current licensing regime for cormorants saying: “As a keen fisherman I understand the concerns of the angling community but these must be balanced with protecting the birds’ conservation status. I approach this review with a completely open mind.”

While many anglers are calling for a complete cull, the RSPB explains that it’s control that’s needed rather than a cull. “At the moment the control measures are there to help the fisheries, not control the cormorant population. We would be breaking European laws if we start to cull the cormorant population,” says Grahame Madge, media officer at the RSPB. “We are particularly concerned about the idea of killing birds all year round. One of our main concerns is that if you kill an adult bird in mating season it may have young relying on it for food. As part of the government’s review we’d like to see provision built in to monitor the breeding population.”

Scarecrows and kites

The RSPB also believes that shooting isn’t the only way to rid yourself of cormorants as Grahame points out: “Disturbance by people is thought to be the most effective, though potentially labour intensive. Other than that, the usual range of visual (scarecrows, kites, balloons etc) or noise-generating scarers can be tried. To avoid the birds becoming too used to specific techniques, users can switch between devices to reduce habituation.”

Sscaring techniques are not the angler’s preferred way of doing things though. When waterscape announced news of the cormorant review last month, the comments on the story were predominantly in favour of a cull with one commenter remarking: “The flood of cormorants that are currently decimating wild fish stocks are here in numbers that exceed the normally sustainable population and are destroying the natural ecology of our fresh,” and another asserting that “the only good cormorant is a dead cormorant”.

What do you think about the cormorant situation in Britain? Are you an angler with a novel way of keeping cormorants at bay? Do you think we should protect these birds and their young? Let us know by posting your comments on this feature below.

Last updated: 11/02/2011