cormorantbusters

cormweb@yahoo.co.uk

Thank you for visiting this site. This site has evolved after many hours spent on lakes, gravelpits, rivers and estuaries, fishing, walking and observing the wildlife and birds.

According to my Hamlyn book of birds the Cormorant is the largest fish eating bird in the UK.

The Cormorant is by far the most numerous of these fish eating birds and yet it still has schedule one protection, a status that is meant to be used for rare birds like the Osprey, a bird that is smaller than the cormorant, far less numerous and consequently does far less damage to rivers and lakes.

This site has been up for over 9 years now ( I am still waiting for the police to come round to prosecute me for placing it on the web) in that time I have learned a lot more about birds and a lot more about the anti anglers, these people clearly know less about the countryside than they would have you believe. Many of them will claim to be anglers as well in order try and fool you.

All that this site is calling for is for fishery owners to have the same rights as the RSPB and other so-called nature organisations which often practice controlls of various birds, espescially crows, foxes and other vermin in order to protect their own favoured species.

I have never heard of the RSPB being prosecuted for killing birds but this practice is common on some of their reserves, see the latest update on the news page of this site.

I now consider the position of the RSPB and the wildlife trust's regarding cormorants to be much less about conserving wildlife and far more about making fishing less popular so that they have less competition when they are teying to take controll of an area of land.

In Scotland the RSPB are currently running a campaign to have more Deer shot, apparently the Deer are too numerous and their actions are in conflict with some favoured bird species, a chap called Peter Mayhew is in charge of this campaign, no doubt it will be successful as the RSPB always seem to get their own way no matter what they wish to kill.

I have over 40 years experience of our rivers and lakes so I do know a bit about this subject.

Please take time to view this site with an open mind and try to be sensible about this problem.

This is a complex issue that most bird watchers won't even admit is a problem. But you only have to look at the "damage & consequences" page to see that this alarming problem is very real.

Just a few cormorants will decimate stocks of small fish on a small to medium sized river in a very short time. On the River Loddon in Berkshire this has happened in spite of there being many gravel pits nearby which clearly contain fish, several of which are nature reserves.

Read the "Lies that they expect us to swallow" page and then you may realize how bad this problem for our wildlife is going to get.

For a look at everything that you did not know about cormorants and a few things that you could not give a toss about anyway see http://web.tiscali.it/sv2001 these people only care about cormorants. Some of these people think that it is important to find out the internal temperature of a cormorant so they insert a logger (thermometer) inside a live bird! The stress that this must cause to the poor creature must alter the eventual temperature readings so how is this necessary? one of the guys has even invented a spring attatchment to prevent the bird from rejecting the thermometer. I could not beliveve what I was reading, and I expect that these guys think that angling is cruel.

I totally believe that the carbo sinesis cormorants were deliberately and illegally introduced into the UK by extremist birdwatchers. This was a criminal and reckless act. As with other introduced, non-native creatures they are decimating our local wildlife and causing very serious damage to fisheries and to the habitat of other birds and animals.

I would like someone from the RSPB to explain why they oppose cormorant control but carry out the killings of large numbers of so called protected birds themselves every year? This is hypocritical.

It is ridiculous that cormorants are included on schedule one, part one of the 1981 wildlife and countryside act giving them special protection. This protection was intended for the pygmy cormorant, a bird that is not even present in the UK ......yet?? So this protection for cormorants should not be applied in the UK

UK cormorants have never been and never will be an endangered species. This legislation was intended to protect endangered species. It is an abuse to use this legislation in this way.

Because this act is being used in this way it will probably mean extinction for the Atlantic Salmon on rivers where fish are not protected from cormorants.

The numbers that these birds have reached is totally unsustainable. We are not allowed to control these numbers by, for example, oiling the eggs. But it's OK for nature to control their numbers by starving the poor creatures!

When the food supply runs out. Which it will. These birds must be allowed to starve in order for their numbers to be controlled! Absolutely crazy. But it would seem that this is what the Bird watchers want.

In the meantime all of our fish are eaten and many other birds and animals that rely on them suffer also.

It's obvious that you cannot remove the human being from the equation.

But never mind, this is conservation??

In the Angling Times this week 24.10.01 there is an article about what the RSPB and English Nature are currently saying about this problem. Apparently the cormorant problem can easily be solved if we just get more fish to feed them with!

Laughable isn't it? None of them are offering to put their hands in their pockets to pay for these fish.

I have received many e-mails from the bird watchers and any replies or comments that I have to make will be posted on the "why this site exists" page. If you wish to comment or question then read this page first as there may already be an answer up on the site.

6 pairs of cormorants nesting at Coombe Abbey near Coventry for the first time.

Q. Why do most of the kingfishers appear to be missing, along with the numerous small roach fry from the large gravel pits at Burrfield near Reading this (2001) summer?

Kingfishers used to be quite numerous on the waters there and you could see many roach and bream fry in the margins if you looked with polaroid sunglasses. I went looking the other day and saw very few roach fry and no kingfishers, perhaps they have just moved elsewhere to exploit new opportunities? Maybe this has nothing to do with the several dozen cormorants that have used these waters every winter for the last few years, of course I must be wrong because I haven't done a survey. But I have fished these waters for the last ten years. I can see with my own eyes.

I have since revisited these gravelpits on 12-06-01, spent 5 hours there and saw no kingfishers and again very little small fry in the margins. Don't just take my word for it, go and look for yourself.

Q. When are the bird watchers and going to realize that you get nothing for nothing, every thing has it's price. If a massive imbalance occurs as is happening then something has to give.

Just remember you read it here first!

Please also read all of Martin Read's page before sending me E mails telling me that I'm wrong or that there is no problem.

Also read English Nature report no.360 about inland breeding cormorants (1998). This report states that there may be 10,000 inland breeding cormorants within the next 5-10 years not counting the 4-5,000 that we get from the coasts for most of the year anyway.

I would like somebody from English Nature to explain how it was that this report, which was completed in 1998 was not published for nearly 3 years!

I don't know what they think all these 10,000 expected extra cormorants are going to eat as already many waters are severely depleted of fish stocks and on some rivers I believe stocks are in danger of collapsing completely.

I consider that the RSPB and bird watchers everywhere are being extremely bad neighbours by allowing and encouraging these birds on to their waters. They are encouraging what they want to the complete detriment of all other wildlife.

These birds do not ever stay on the reserves as they quickly eat all of the fish there. They then move on to our great rivers and lakes. This happening to all of our fisheries and it is not acceptable.

In year 2000 there were over 860 cormorants legally shot in the UK plus numerous others that were illegally killed, yet these birds are still increasing in numbers at an alarming rate and are still protected. Why?

If you go out and feed ducks and swans then please don't use mouldy bread because this can cause botulisum and can kill the swans, then the birdwatchers will claim that the swans died as a result of eating lead anglers weights.

Anglers everywhere laid down and took the blame for swan deaths back in the 1980's when most of the lead poisoning evidence that I saw produced on television nature programmes was gun shot lead. The shooters hotly disputed this evidence. It would not suprise me if this evidence was faked.

It would not be the first time that something that was claimed to be true on a nature programme had been faked to hoodwink the unsuspecting viewer, and none of this "evidence" took account of the lead that was spewing out of the exhaust's of boat engines at the time.

This is not going to happen this time. We now have 30,000 signature's and rising.

This matter will not go away.

I did not want a "them and us situation" with the bird watchers, but by not even admitting that there is a problem and refusing even to talk to Martin Read about it, the birdwatchers are causing this situation. There will be no solution or end to illegal cormorant killing otherwise.

Footnote: I challenge any person to be able to dispute any of the numbers quoted within this website or the amount that these birds eat.

This website has been up for more than a year now and to date nobody has been able to do this.

NB. except for a person from Rutland that thinks the English Nature survey is wrong! He claimed to Know many many anglers, yet he had never even heard of the ACA, an organization that is funded by anglers and its job is to prosecute polluters. He also did not read the whole site before sending me abusive e-mails, if you read what he sent me on the "why" page then you will see what I mean.