American Ornithologists Union debunk cormorant control "science"

The American Ornithologists Union (AOU) has recently published their report on U.S. Federal Legislation on the management of double-crested cormorants. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services along with the US Department of Agriculture's "Wildlife Services" division (until recently called "Animal Damage Control") have approved regional depredation orders for cormorants.

This report is significant because it is written by an independant panel of avian scientisits, as opposed to government wildlife "managers". Ontario is considering similar controls.

The AOU's report on cormorants can be found at this link. http://www.aou.org:80/committees/conservation.php3

A summarizes its findings are as follows:

the scientific evidence supporting the proposed action is weak;
the analysis of the data is simplistic;
the management plan proposed by USFWS is inadequate and has a poorly evaluated potential to be effective;
the consequences of the proposed action on the cormorants are unknown, and appear to be punitive instead of mitigatory;
the assessment of success is unclear; in the DEIS, success is based on public perception and not on scientific results. The FEIS is not clear on how success will be assessed; and 6) there is no adequate mechanism for monitoring the population effects of the plan, nor for deciding when to
terminate management actions." (pp. 9-10).

It further concludes:
"...we find that (a) there is no good evidence presented in the FEIS that cormorants cause significant fisheries problems except at aquaculture and hatchery sites;

the solutions proposed, primarily increased take, would likely be ineffective at aquaculture and hatchery sites yet potentially destructive to continental cormorant populations;
how "success" of a control program would be defined is unclear; and
there is no monitoring program in place or proposed that could evaluate success, or detect effects on continental cormorant populations.

Consequently, it appears that what the USFWS plans to do constitutes persecution of a bird species rather than a solution to the real problems of declining fisheries and depredation at aquaculture and hatchery sites." (p. 21).

Ohio's lethal controls are claimed not to be motivated by any effect on the local fishery (although support from fishers has been eagerly accepted), but only by the need to protect colonies of other nesting birds and the associated vegetation. The AOU report overall gives short shrift to this
justification, but does say: "Other concerns associated with Double-crested Cormorants addressed by the FEIS were not supported by scientific evidence, or at most showed that the impact would be localized to the immediate sites of colonies or roosts . This included impacts to other birds, vegetation,
water quality, and federally listed species." (pp. 15-16).