Posted on 08/08/2014 4:38:51 PM PDT by Innovative
Now, the population of the cormorants on East Sand Island has burgeoned from about 100 breeding pairs to 14,900, and a federal agency wants to have thousands of the seabirds shot to protect the fish, including some that are protected or endangered.
The birds eat lots of endangered wild fish, as well as hatchery stocks — an estimated 11 million a year — mainly in May as the young fish head for their years in the ocean.
In June, the corps released its plan to kill 16,000 of the birds. A public comment period has been extended to Aug. 19.
She said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would issue permits for the shooting, which would be carried out by the Wildlife Services agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
(Excerpt) Read more at columbian.com ...
You all know me. You know that I can take care of this cormorant problem for you. But, I’ll need some supplies. Get me a fly swatter, three gallons of Elmer’s glue and a Snickers bar. I missed lunch.
I’m also going to need some help. I’ll take the urologist and that kid from the grade school who can play FEELINGS with his armpit.
“The lack of predatory birds serves to allow the slower and weaker offspring of the fish survive.”
Those would be the hatchery fish that we spent so money on to raise.
They taste like salmon on the wing.
The clue here is dumping the young salmon. Cormorants and other predators can figure that out and prey on the little fish.
Who is running that operation, a bunch of dummies?
HAHAHA. This decision brought to you by bureaucrats who also killed off the seals to protect stupid fish.
If these salmon are so endangered maybe these fools can go to the grocery store. It’s always on sale.
Hey, speaking as a wharf rat, you gotta respect and admire cormorants. They're hell divers. They work for a living, hunting fish by diving deep and long, and they're always very cool to watch. They aren't like seals and sea lions, which destroy and sink boats and docks by laying on them safely as "protected" species whom the vessel and dock owners are prohibited from "molesting," nor do cormorants steal cash in the form of hooked albacore or such from boats that fish commercially, like the protected mammals do. Cormorants don't eat the tiniest fraction of fish and shellfish consumed by seals, sea lions, otters, etc., all of whose numbers on the California coast have easily quadrupled over the last 50 years.
Trying to reserve a status quo population "balance" in nature is like trying to freeze-frame an ocean wave and measuring all future waves against it: plain lunacy. Nature surges forward with zero regard to any status quo, and human attempts to "preserve" it are all vanities.
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