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

  • Freshwater Fisheries cannot cope with or sustain cormorants.
  • The word cormorant is derived from the Latin words, "corvus marinus" meaning "sea crow". This goes to show that even the Ancient Greeks thought of it as a sea bird. It does not belong on fresh waters in the UK, and we all know how much damage crows can do to wildlife.
  • In the bible cormorants are described as an abomination, so we have God on our side!
  • Cormorants bring nothing but destruction to our waters.
  • Five cormorants will eat a metric tonne of fish each year. There is barely a fishery in the country that could sustain this level of depletion.
  • Two cormorants can destroy a two acre fishery in one year, four birds will destroy it in six months and 16 birds in just six weeks! This is a far shorter time than it takes to get a licence to shoot them and even then you can only get a license to shoot ten percent of your problem. If one is granted at all.
  • Cormorants spread Ecoli into our water supply and are suspected of spreading crayfish plauge this is because our native white-clawed crayfish have been found to have been killed by crayfish plauge on rivers where the american signal crayfish (which spreads the crayfish plauge) is not present
  • Cormorants are suspected of spreading newcastle disease a viral infection that devastates domestic poultry
  • If your water is an SSSI then you will find it almost impossible to get a cormorant controll licence. If you are approached by English Nature to have SSSI status on your property think very carefully before signing up
  • Phalacrocorax carbo carbo, (the British one) cormorants are sea birds not freshwater birds.
  • We are now getting large numbers of the continental bird Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis. These birds are an alien species and are also freshwater feeders, Therefore the argument that the decline in sea fish stocks is a reason for them being on our waters does not stand up. They are being encouraged to spread across the UK by the RSPB and various other so-called Environmental Organisations to the complete detriment and disregard for other very important aquatic wildlife.
  • Cormorants are protected, as are all wild birds by the 1981 wildlife and countryside act. This legislation however was no use whatsoever to the Ruddy Ducks that were all shot on the RSPB reserves recently. These ducks were doing no environmental damage and were not hurting anything but they were still shot. The RSPB's moral argument ends here!
  • The RSPB also kill numerous land crows every year but seek to prosecute anyone that kills the sea crows.
  • Cormorants have been persecuted for years right across Europe (WITH VERY GOOD REASONS,) these reasons are clearly set out on this site.
  • Cormorants will also feed at night.
  • All cormorants are extremely efficient fish killers.
  • The continental cormorant can be far more numerous and lives in large colonies, (check your local gravel pits).
  • From my own observations, cormorants will attack the rivers in the area first taking everything that is worth taking and harming the prospects of other fish eating birds. I am seeing a marked decline in the numbers of grebes, kingfishers etc in my local area.
  • Cormorants do not respect fishing club or landowner boundaries.
  • Each cormorant will eat £10.00 worth of fish (replacement value) per day.
  • Cormorants eat all fish and not just eels or immature ones (as the bird watchers often claim).
  • Many cormorants are infested with worms this causes a need to eat twice as much food a day than would normally be needed.
  • The average size of fish that is found inside a dead cormorant is 7cm, this means that each cormorant, on average has to eat 25-30 fish per day.
  • A 7 cm fish is about exactly the size of fish that I have seen the little grebes eating on the River Thames.
  • Cormorants are a serious threat to the little grebes.
  • There are many species of fish that are adult and fully grown at 7 cm.
  • Cormorants often take more fish than they can digest and because this can make it difficult to fly they will sometimes have to disgorge several of them before taking off, obviously these fish are dead. This is another example of cormorants killing fish that they don't eat.
  • A cormorant will swallow small fish without even surfacing. This fact has been observed by scientists who, by watching these birds are of the opinion that the energy being used by the birds to catch the fish was more than the energy that was contained within the bodies of the fish that they were diving for, if the birds surfaced in between catches. Also I have been told of pike fishermen catching cormorants on large dead herrings, these birds usually die because they have swallowed the fish under water.
  • An English Nature report no. 360 in 1998! concluded that there were expected to be 10,000 inland breeding cormorants in this country within the next 5-10 years if no action was taken,( this report was not published for two years.) In my opinion, this report was hushed up to allow these birds to establish colonies in land at the expense of our fish!
  • Juvenile cormorants travel on average 60 miles from home in order to find new nesting sites. This is within two months of fledging!
  • Cormorants are very difficult to approach and will not often come down onto a water if a person is stood on the bank.
  • Cormorant droppings are very toxic. The trees that they roost in WILL die because the cormorants land there. If this is what it does to trees then what must it be doing to the water?
  • If there are no small fish left (very common) then these birds will attack fish that are far too large for them to swallow, but injure and leave them dying.
  • Cormorants DO NOT only kill for food, I have seen and photographed fish that have been badly injured, that will die of their injuries. These fish are far too large for a cormorant to eat, some of the evidence is on this site.
  • Now we suspect that we know why divers saw many dead fish on the bottom of the River Trent a few years ago, when there was no detectable pollution present, they may have died of shock whilst being attacked.
  • Left alone your fishery will be decimated by these birds.
  • If you see only occasional cormorants on your river or lake this does not mean that you do not have a major problem with fish stocks. The cormorants may have already been on your river and left with your fish stocks, only to return just as the fish populations are trying to recover.
  • The cormorant invasion of our fisheries is an environmental disaster that is happening before our very eyes.
  • Cormorants will grab larger fish and shake them.
  • Cormorants attack all fish of the sizes that anglers fish for.
  • They can only swallow the smaller ones, but all fish were small once.
  • The cormorant is a very common bird and is not in anyway an endangered species - unlike our fish.
  • Cormorants NEVER have 'days off'!
  • Cormorants breed at three years of age and can live twenty years.
  • Cormorants have no natural predators in the UK to control their numbers.
  • Cormorants do not respect any 'closed season'.
  • If fish that are left in a water do manage to find each other in order to shoal up and breed, one strike by a cormorant would be enough to break up the shoal and severely interfere with the fishes' breeding cycle.
  • All of these facts point to the results of an alien species being present, this is what happens when a non-native creature becomes established. This is still the case weather you have the European cormorant nesting in a colony or if you have the saltwater cormorant (sea crows) on your waters stealing your fish.
  • Quite soon the only waters worth fishing on will be the ones that are patrolled early every morning by somebody with a shot gun.

If you disagree with any of this then simply invite the environment agency on to your fishery to survey it and find out for yourself. This is why our fisheries cannot sustain these birds. The bird watchers will try and minimize these facts because they do not want to see any birds shot, but our fish are still wildlife which deserve better protection.

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Questions to bird watchers?

1. Do you consider fish to be wildlife?

If your answer is yes then the fish have as much right to exist as your beloved birds.

If your answer is no then you are a narrow minded bigot!

2. Would you like it if a family of thieves, (encouraged by others) that were immune to prosecution moved into your street?

3. With the 1998, English Nature report no. 360 declaring an expected extra 10,000 inland birds (which are an alien species to the UK) within the next 5-10 years, in addition to the 4-5,000 that we get every winter flying up from the coasts, what do you think that these birds are going to eat, because all of the unprotected waters that I know of have already been stripped of fish?

4. Why should anglers, through fish replacement costs subsidize your hobby? Bearing in mind that most of you dislike us intensely.

5. How many cormorants do we need in this country? 50,000? 100,000? 500,000? A million?

6. If the RSPB can spend money buying wheat to feed geese at the Loch of Strathbeg and no doubt on other reserves. Then why do they expect us to feed their cormorants?

7. I and many other people would very much like to see some proof that the freshwater cormorant has existed naturally within the UK previous to the last 25 years as the birdwatchers claim, if you can produce it then please do so and forward it to the Angling Star. If, as we all suspect you can't produce any then you must stop making this ridiculous claim

I look forward to your answers but I wont be holding my breath!

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