Point pelee Begins Shooting

Double-crested Cormorants
Let the Birds Live

Toronto, Friday April 17, 2009: Point Pelee National Park begins shooting Double-crested Cormorants nesting on Middle Island on Saturday April 18, 2009 - this despite mounting evidence showing that Parks Canada can’t substantiate their claims that cormorants are causing an ecological meltdown.

Last year, Parks Canada stated that killing cormorants was necessary to protect the Monarch Butterfly. But according to their federal counterparts, The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), there is no research that links Double-crested Cormorants to the demise of the Monarch Butterfly. And while Point Pelee National Park is designated a Monarch Butterfly Conservation Site, it is the tip of the mainland peninsula, and not Middle Island, that is of conservation value.

"According to COSEWIC and the Canadian Wildlife Service, Middle Island has never been assessed as a monarch flyway area'. says AnnaMaria Valastro campaigner for the Peaceful Parks Coalition. "Parks Canada is tugging at the public heart strings to win support for their brutal wildlife management policy because they know everyone loves butterflies."

Environmental and wildlife protection advocates are aggressively challenging public statements made by federal and provincial officials that are deliberately intended to mislead. "We are fed-up with government officials that make public statements that aren't true simply to achieve a political end goal,' says Valastro. "The impacts nesting cormorants have on their environment couldn't be more ecologically sound, yet Parks Canada continues to portray these birds as an ecological bomb. It is just ridiculous"

The Peaceful Parks Coalition is encouraging individuals to walk away from Parks Canada’s policy to kill thousands of nesting cormorants in a national park renown as a bird sanctuary.

Parks Canada began shooting nesting cormorants last year, and almost 14.000 people decided not to visit the national park during the spring migration, the hallmark of the park’s appeal. This represented one of the largest drops in visitors in the last ten years, similar to the drop after 9/11. Declines in visitors continued through to October 2008.

For more information, including COSEWIC reports on the Monarch Butterfly, please contact AnnaMaria Valastro: cell 416.785.8636

Note to the Editor
Visitor statistics was retrieved through Parks Canada and the freedom of information legislation.