Cormorant damage fish on Rivers Lakes and canals in the Uk and Ireland

The number of cormorants in the Uk has increased by 17 times in the last 25 years and the RSPB do not see that this is a problem

These fish are just a few ot the many injured fish that are swimming about in our rivers at present, there are no pictures of damaged dace because this small fish has been almost totally wiped out by the cormorants and because it is a small fish, only growing to about a pound any dace that is grabbed by a cormorant is swallowed thereby eating the evidence

	For anyone to say that this damage is Ok would be insane, ok so these are stocked fish but what is a business owner meant to do? There are almost no wild fish left and his fishermen wish to come and catch something and before you tell me that the cormorants are only visiting because the river is overstocked please bear in mind that these fish cost £15.00 each minimum so only an idiot would be overstocking.
	Would you be happy to eat this fish?

For anyone to say that this damage is Ok would be insane, ok so these are stocked fish but what is a business owner meant to do? There are almost no wild fish left and his fishermen wish to come and catch something and before you tell me that the cormorants are only visiting because the river is overstocked please bear in mind that these fish cost £15.00 each minimum so only an idiot would be overstocking.

Would you be happy to eat this fish?

	This brown trout caught Jan 2014 on the river test hampshire was injured by a cormorant, it is a fish stocked by the owner of the river as there are not many wild fish left for his fishermen to catch. It has an infected wound that would stop anyone wanting to eat it it will probably die from this injury in about 3-6 monthe. The cost to the owner is £15.00 for each trout £5.00 per pound
	This is a picture of the same fish from the other side. Anyone who has a business would not be happy with these sort of losses Birdwatchers say that we should leave it to nature and this will controll cormorant numbers, this means shit fishing for cormorants so that they starve to death also it means shit fishing for us

	This young chub was caught near testwood Pool on the river Test in Hampshire More damage caused by cormorants, when their numbers finally reduce (as they are allegedly going to) because they are starving to death it will partly due to the number of fish that they killed but did not eat!
	The same fish from the other side you can see that it's a young fish that should live to reproduce but probably won't thanks to a cormorant

This young chub was caught near testwood Pool on the river Test in Hampshire

More damage caused by cormorants, when their numbers finally reduce (as they are allegedly going to) because they are starving to death it will partly due to the number of fish that they killed but did not eat!

The same fish from the other side you can see that it's a young fish that should live to reproduce but probably won't thanks to a cormorant

	River Wye 2014
	River Wye 2014

	Grayling River Test 2013 looks as if it has been attacked with a stanley knife
	Grayling River Test 2013 the same fish from the other side

	This is a very rare fish, a dace that has been grabbed by a cormorant but escaped, very unusual, usually these fish are swallowed and do not escape, each cormorant would need at least 8 of these adult fish a day to survive, this is why vast shoals of these fish have dissapeared from our rivers.

These small fish are the staple food for Herons, Grebes, Kingfishers, Pike Perch Zander Chub Trout etc.

So when a large seabird arrives in large numbers it will totally upset the natural balance.

	This rainbow trout (approx. weight of 1lb 4oz.) was caught on Christmas Eve 2000 at Downton on the Hampshire Avon. It's injury can clearly be seen. This was caused by a cormorant that had the hope of swallowing this fish, but caused (in the long term) probably fatal injuries to the fish in the attempt.
I've seen many more injured fish in the water than I have been able to catch and photograph. It is quite difficult to catch or find injured fish because they will not usually feed and if they are unable to sustain themselves in the flowing water they are simply swept away.

This 1lb 13oz roach was caught in December 1999 at Downton on the Hampshire Avon. This beautiful fish has been grabbed by a cormorant and shaken until a chunk was torn out of it. Amazingly this fish survived.

After these photographs were taken I returned the roach to the water, though it is doubtful whether it would be able to survive long enough to grown on or to breed.

Sadly, this fish is probably dead now, having been attacked by a non-indigenous bird which had no hope of ever being able to swallow it in order to feed itself and it can no longer produce young fish to feed any other birds either.(Downton is at least 25 miles from an estuary.)

NB: Chub and bream of these sizes are almost impossible to replace from fish dealers. If they could be obtained they would cost between £10 and £25 for each fish, now you can see how a fishing club can easily loose thousands of pounds worth of fish in a very short number of weeks.

The two photographs above were taken in November 2001 on the bank of The Hampshire Avon, this area has been declared a site of special scientific interest by English Nature. This status is put in place supposedly to protect endangered species, however the SSSI status is making the plight of the Atlantic Salmon much worse because it is much harder to get a controll license for cormorants in an SSSI area.

These three bream are from a lake in County Cork, Southern Ireland, they were caught in 2001 and they have clearly been badly damaged by cormorant attacks.

Also these fish are clearly part of the natural breeding stocks of the waters and as such their well being is essential to the ecology of the whole lake. Again the cormorants that attacked these fish had no hope of ever being able to eat them, but these fish will probably die anyway.

Because Angling is worth so much money to the economy of the country of Ireland I am very surprised that they allow this damage to occur. ( In 1997 144,000 anglers visited Ireland and spent £67 million.) It is quite likely that these fish suffered the same fate as the bream in the next pictures.

The bream in the next three pictures was found dying at a lake in Ringwood Hampshire, Southern England. The cormorant slashes had become infected with fungus and it could no longer swim properly. This fish probably took 6 months to die.

As this fish was over 6 lbs in weight, in a lake where the bream are expected to reach 12 lbs you could surmise that this fish was about halfway through it's life, You would expect to pay about £15.00 for each fish replacement. This fish is now dead and will no longer produch small fry that fish eating birds need to feed on and the cormorants that attacked it could not have eaten it anyway!

These next pictures are of some chub, this first one has had its anal fin cut by the beak of a cormorant also there is a tear in its side near it's tail.

This picture needs no explanation, The line of the cormorant's beak can clearly be seen.

The chub in the next pictures has two injuries, one on its belly and one on its side just behind the gills.

Again in all of these cases the birds had no chance of ever swallowing the fish, all that they succeded in doing is damaging the breeding stocks of the water which, in time will reduce the overall fish stocks causing a reduction in food for all birds and mamals that rely on them including the highly numerous cormorants.

The next two pictures are of our fish after cormorants have eaten them.

It is difficult to tell which species of fish that they are without a microscope and a laboratory, but because at the time that I took these photographs the only fish that we could catch in the river that were small enough for a cormorant to swallow were Atlantic Salmon Smolts and Parr. as such it is highly probable that this is a picture of some small Atlantic salmon.

According to the World Wildlife Fund the Atlantic Salmon is one of the most endangered species of fish in the world.

It would seem that English Nature and the RSPB would prefer to see them turned into cormorant shit though!

This chub was caught by an angler on the River Don in Yorkshire, again it is clearly part of the breeding stocks, nearly too large for a cormorant to swallow. The angler returned the fish alive. Do you think that it is going to survive for long?

Chub can live for thirty years, if they don't meet cormorants.

These tench were caught in an official netting by a fishing club on a lake in Sheffield Yorkshire in order to transfer them to another water to replace fish thet had been eaten by cormorants. The cormorants had eaten so many fish that two mens jobs could have been lost as a result.

This Salmon Parr was caught in the Hants Avon in December 2001. I have placed its photo here to demonstrate the fact that these endangered fish are of a size that cormorants could easily and do catch. These little fish are supposed to grow larger in the river for four years! During which time they are not supposed to meet a cormorant.

I have had an e-mail from a person that claims cormorants do not catch these little salmon, If these fish become extinct then it will not be the fault of the cormorants it will be the fault of people such as him.

This cormorant was shot soon after eating this 1lb 8oz roach, when it was cut open the roach was found inside. This roach was probably 10-12 years old and obviously can no longer produce fry to feed other fish eating birds such as Little Grebes or Herons.

The two photos of this dead tench were taken at a lake near Salisbury in Wiltshire, England, about 40 miles from the sea. It is very clear from these photos that the cormorant made repeated, unsuccessfull and futile attempts to swallow this large mature fish.

This fish weighed about two and a half pounds, (1.3 kilos) and was probably 12 years old with a normal life expectancy of about 25 years. Live Tench of this weight cost £20.00 (33 euros) each!

The longer that I have this site up the more horror stories that I hear from other anglers, I spoke to one the other day and he told me a tale of an afternoon he spent on the River Rother in Sussex, Southern England. This angler saw one cormorant kill thirteen chub in one afternoon the bird only ate two of them because the others were too large for it to swallow but they were so badly damaged in its attempts to swallow them that the fish floated off downstream and died anyway.

Apart from the obvious environmental damage to trees, the water pollution from their shit, a severe shortage of food for herons, otters and other natural predators that are meant to be on our waters. Also many lost and injured fish.

There are other less obvious consequences of this alien invasion.

The price of stock fish has gone up with the increase in demand creating temptations for fraud by fish dealers.

Vast shoals of silver fish have suspiciously disappeared from some of the smaller free waters that I know of here in Hampshire. These waters are too small for it to have been cormorants.

There are fewer anglers and the ones that are left are forced to go fishing on the overstocked commercial fisheries that the environmentalists and anti anglers hate so much.

Pidgeoan Island, Eastern Lake Ontario.

Courtesy of the Great Lakes Sport Fishing, Ontario, Canada.

Don't kid your self that this won't happen here, the anglers on this lake started off with only a few birds and they ended up with tens of thousands, and very poor fishing.

There are many bird watchers and members of the RSPB who would like to see this on our waters!

A target rich environment !

A gruesome sight !

So destructive you will barely be able to watch.

Coming soon to your area, courtesy of the RSPB. English Nature, and bird watchers every where.

Their appetite is huge!: M Read, Angling star.

It's amazing. The trees just die,: Dave, Hants.

The end of our great rivers:,D Taylor, Angling Times.

A sickening sight; Anglers, everywhere.

I cant find any food; A.N. Otter, Hants Avon.

Neither can I; Mr. Hungry Heron, Fordingbridge,

Since placing this picture here 13 years ago this sight has come my area, last winter there were about 135 cormorants at a local roost where there used to be none with 65 of them resting on one tree!

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