No science and waning interest, why are the PCs still allowing the widespread slaughter of a native species?

It is an artful hunter, with a body adapted for the water, able to dive to impressive depths to clasp fish in its hooked beak. After holding its breath deep beneath the surface of Lake Ontario for several minutes it resurfaces and with a deft flick, tosses its catch in the air and swallows it down. 

Historically, these birds were even domesticated, trained and used for fishing. But the practice has mostly died out.

Despite widespread belief, it is not an invasive species in Ontario, with sightings dating back to 1798 in Lake of the Woods.

Their population numbers, according to the Ontario government, are steady, even declining. In fact, the species was nearly wiped out due to the liberal use of pesticides and their resurgence in the Great Lakes region is labelled a conservation success story.

These birds actually help control invasive species. When one begins to proliferate in their habitat, like the round goby in Lake Ontario, their diet shifts to almost exclusively that which is in abundance. 

But thanks to Premier Doug Ford and the PC government, anyone with a small game license and a shotgun is allowed to go out and kill 15 of these birds every day from now until the end of the year. 

The cull of the double-crested cormorant, initiated by the PCs in 2020, has confounded conservation and wildlife experts. 

The provincial government has claimed this cull is part of a wider management strategy for the cormorant. Experts have repeatedly pointed out that the elements of responsible wildlife management are all missing in this case, including population targets, consistent monitoring and a documented conservation strategy. The cull has been labelled the most regressive example of wildlife “management” in Canadian history.

While studies have shown cormorants pose no threat to commercial fisheries, the fact that they are skilled hunters has drawn the ire of fishermen who view them as a threat.

(Barry Kent MacKay)

For the last four years, The Pointer has requested data from the provincial government on how many birds have been killed annually as part of this misguided program. 

The data should have been straightforward for the PC government to produce, as they claimed monitoring efforts form a key part of this “sustainable hunt”. For years, the government refused to release any data. 

Managing the number of animals killed and whether those animals are adults or juvenile is a key piece of any wildlife conservation strategy.

For the first time this year, the PC government was able to provide data for a year of its cormorant cull. 

According to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF), in 2020, there were 961 cormorant hunters who hunted 3,937 days and killed 6,336 double crested cormorants. This amounts to 4.4 percent of Ontario’s cormorant population killed in a single season. The total number of double crested cormorants in the province is estimated to be 143,000 adults based on bird count data.  

“Similar to other water bird hunters, most cormorant hunters harvested few or no cormorants with few hunters harvesting many,” a spokesperson told The Pointer. “MNRF staff observations since that time suggest interest in cormorant hunting has decreased since the first year of the hunt.”

The government did not provide data for 2021, 2022 or the 2023 hunt, noting that data is collected “every few years” and provided no explanation for how these numbers were determined. There is no obligation for those hunting cormorants to report the numbers they kill. There are only 209 Conservation Officers across the entire province who monitor for compliance with fish and wildlife laws.

Experts across the country are calling for this cull to come to an end.

“The government has absolutely no data to back up what they’re doing,” Jim Ludwig says. Ludwig is an ecologist and expert in the conditions of the Great Lakes ecosystem—of which cormorants play a vital role. “They have no interest in going out and getting the data, because if they do, they’ll find that they’re hunt is absolutely ridiculous and I think they know that.”

He says the PCs are looking for a scapegoat to the complex problems that are plaguing the Great Lakes region. 

“They look for sound bites they can use. Cormorants eat fish so therefore cormorants are bad. That’s really the substance of their argument right there, that’s it, end of statement,” he says. “It’s wildlife persecution in the guise of management.”

“I think there is a need to hate. A deep sort of subconscious need to have something to hate, to have a scapegoat, something to blame for anything,” Barry Kent MacKay, a naturalist, conservationist and artist who has been studying birds and cormorants for decades, says.

“Here we have something that we can point to and hate with a certain amount of social acceptance it seems.”

When the PC government announced the cull in 2020, they pointed to “concerns raised by some hunters and stakeholders, including commercial fishers, about the potential harmful impacts of cormorants on fish populations and shoreline habitats.” What they did not mention is the cull came following years of lobbying by the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters which, among their priorities for Premier Doug Ford’s PC government, requested some form of management plan be created for cormorants to address the “overabundance” of these birds, as their numbers “appear to be” increasing. 

Among their suggestions was the listing of double-crested cormorant as a game species—a request the PCs quickly approved. 

There is no denying double-crested cormorants, historically, have seen a surge in their numbers around the Great Lakes, with studies finding a 300-fold increase between 1973 and 1993. While the resurgence may appear surprising to some—especially as colonial waterbirds, double-crested cormorants nest in large numbers—their population size is not evidence of overabundance, but what numerous studies have shown to be a return to normal for a species that was nearly wiped out by human activity including hunting and contamination of their natural habitat. Even by the Government of Ontario’s assessment, included with its proposal for the hunt posted on the Environmental Registry of Ontario, cormorant populations “have since stabilized or declined slightly” after the early 2000s.

The PC claim about threats to fish populations is equally dubious. No studies have connected cormorants to a decline in the species of fish commercial or recreational fisherman are after. When The Pointer asked the PC government for any scientific evidence to support its claim of an apparent threat, after repeated requests, a study was provided that actually concluded the opposite. The PCs have never addressed this contradiction. 

“I wish this was just as simple as a lack of scientific evidence,” Ludwig states. “This government is corrupt when it comes to this issue, it’s utterly corrupt, there’s no other way to phrase it.”

While the PCs claim interest is waning, many hunters are still out killing these birds under the guise of wildlife management.

(Facebook)

The idea that cormorants would be able to decimate an entire species of fish is absurd, says MacKay. 

“There is a profound lack of understanding of basic cause and effect in this case,” he says. “The thought that cormorants can somehow ‘eat all the fish’ and still survive, it makes no sense.”

Even if cormorants were targeting commercial fish, which evidence shows they do not on any type of large scale, eventually they would reach a point of diminishing returns. Cormorants are opportunistic hunters, so when the energy expended to catch a dinner becomes too much, they quickly move on to something easier. Hence why they target fish with larger populations and invasive species.

The final reason the PC government has used to justify this hunt—the bird damages habitats and sensitive ecosystems—is equally misleading.

There is no denying that the nesting habits of cormorants, and their acidic guano, can harm the trees in which they choose to roost, eventually killing them and the surrounding plant life. But as Keith Hobson, a professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Western Ontario describes in an article published in the journal Avian Conservation and Ecology, “this disturbance regime is natural, overwhelmingly local in scale, and simply can not justify large-scale culling.”

This “destruction” caused by cormorant colonies is actually an integral part of the ecosystem in which they nest. Their droppings return nitrogen and phosphorus back into the freshwater ecosystem. 

A comprehensive analysis completed in 2015, involving a long list of environmental experts, narrowed down the 50 biggest threats to the Great Lakes. 

Invasive species, toxic metals, coastal development, sediment loading, climate change and warming temperatures, nuisance algal blooms and contamination, were just a few of the “stressors” identified, currently endangering 20 percent of the Earth’s surface freshwater.

Not surprisingly, the double-crested cormorant did not make the list. 

While the nesting habits of cormorants is damaging to trees, the impact is localized and does not harm the broader ecosystem.

(Joel Wittnebel/The Pointer)

This lack of evidence has led many experts to call for a moratorium on future hunting of double crested cormorants until a scientific basis can be found or sound wildlife management strategy can be created. 

“Obviously a one-size-fits-all approach to cormorant management in the whole province is absurd and it is now time for a moratorium on this legislation until we know much more,” Hobson tells The Pointer. “The history of the last three years has demonstrated this point because, as argued by us several times, an adaptive management approach to knowing populations before culling and after is needed, we are going in blind here. Instead, we hear that population monitoring is sporadic and likely to be drawn out for many years.”

This concern is echoed by Ludwig. 

“When you start screwing around with natural systems, without knowing what the hell you’re doing, without thinking through what might happen, what could happen, in other words run the scenarios, without doing that kind of thing…it's ridiculous.”

Email: [email protected]

At a time when vital public information is needed by everyone, The Pointer has taken down our paywall on all stories to ensure every resident of Brampton, Mississauga and Niagara has access to the facts. For those who are able, we encourage you to consider a subscription. This will help us report on important public interest issues the community needs to know about now more than ever. You can register for a 30-day free trial HERE. Thereafter, The Pointer will charge $10 a month and you can cancel any time right on the website. Thank you