There are two interesting articles in this months T&S Magazine.

The first is " "Big Society" Bailiffs planned in EA Shake-Up". Volunteers may take responsibility for license checks and river management. It is about how the EA is going to lose responsibility for rod-license and conservation to the voluntary sector to cut costs. The Angling Trust, S&TA, Wild Trout Trust, Riverfly Partnership, Atlantic Salmon Trust and the Association of Rivers Trust have been in negotiations with the EA on proposals of what seems to be disposal or delegation of certain areas to these organisations. It says it's part of the Coalition Governments "Big Society and Localism" agenda to reduce central government. I'm all for a reduction of government but I am still flumaxed as to what the heck "Big Society" means.

My thoughts on this though is that these other organisations will now potentially play a greater role in representing our interests and will stand up to government and be more pro-active unlike the EA.

The other short article is I believe one of the first steps I am witnessing of this from the Angling Trust and it is titled "Cormorant License Review". They have been pointing out to government our concerns over Cormorants and the red tape that means we can't effectively deal with this problem due to the limited numbers we can cull. They are asking members to contribute to the review by providing examples of the impact Cormorants, Mergansers, Goosanders and other similar birds etc are having on how they're fishing and on the fish stocks and waters being damaged by them.

Both these articles are in the NewsReel section of Trout & Salmon Magazine on page 32 and well worth a read. I think I may join the Angling Trust this year as I feel they are the ones to represent all of us as a whole and its important to act as a unified body of fishermen. I also think that the Angling Trust have done a lot more and being much more pro-active in fighting pollution incidents on waters than the EA have been in the past.

Cheers,

John

I recently posted on an irish site about a corner or Lough Corrib that is being decimated by cormorant's. On a recent trip down there pike fishing I counted up on 100 birds in what is a very small area. I got the usual tree hugger responces from a few but most were in agreement that something had to be done. There are a few license's given out over here to cull very small numbers during the year but you ain't even going to scratch the surface with 5 birds here and there. Will be interesting to see how things pan out in the UK. At least now the season is started they will be moved about a bit with boat traffic.

I heard that in France they cull 35,000 cormorants a year. Sounds a lot, but is it? So, you thin out 35k this year, and another 35k next year and the year after and the year after that. Are you solving the problem? Each year you knock off a given number and the following year they're back as prolific as ever.

It's the same with signal crayfish. I know someone who has been trapping 45-50,000 signals every year for the last eight years from the same stretch of water. He hasn't made the slightest difference to the overall population in terms of either size or numbers. The consensus is that trapping doesn't work, though it is possible that the trapping as carried on at present, ie targetting the adults because they have a market value, is looking at it from the wrong end. Maybe traps should be designed to trap juveniles in large numbers so as to take them out of the population before they are big enough to breed.

Maybe one solution to the cormorant problem is to deny them use of roost and nesting sites. I know of one coarse angling club that is tackling a canada goose problem on their lake by preventing them gaining access to the islands where they nest. This means that if they want to nest they have to go elsewhere to do it and that gets them and their goslings off that water for the whole spring and summer and potentially for always. Last year they had no more than a dozen goslings on that lake whereas previously there would have been 50, and they're working to reduce that figure to zero. A similar approach might lead to a reduction in cormorant numbers.

I think I may join the Angling Trust this year as I feel they are the ones to represent all of us as a whole and its important to act as a unified body of fishermen. I also think that the Angling Trust have done a lot more and being much more pro-active in fighting pollution incidents on waters than the EA have been in the past.



I would certainly agree that the AT have been more an active body taking on issues effecting anglers and angling and this can only be good news.I dont always agree with some of what they have done,but,they are the more active of governing bodies,uniting rather than dividing.

Any issue on cormorants are always met with a wall from the office staff protecting them.

This year has been the worst for seeing the amount of them.It always seems to me that those who protect them, the prey,FISH,noone even considers them,when they are all gone by predation,it would be too late.

10 birds will kill a fishery easily in 1 month,that is how serious a threat these birds are.
There is a solution which was offered to those who issue licenses,it offers protection to more birds while saving fishery stocks,but,it did not fit into the scientific advice learned from outdated office literature.

This is where anglers require to unify and if the AT does it im all for it .

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Kevin

On entering any fishery the user is greeted by the usual rules & regs, no trolling , No boobies , no heavy petting Ect, could you not just add no cormorants ?? Before disregarding this off the wall response has anyone ever tried it

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Even a man who Is pure in heart . . . . . . .

We found it was a hazard for them,they kept flying into the sign trying to read it and dying.
So we took it away to protect the poor things.

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Kevin

Wild assertions like 10 cormorants will kill a fishery in a month will not work when confronting officialdom, a) because it verges on the hysterical, and b) because it isn't true.

Some experimental work was done over a three year period at a disused water treatment site using the settlement lagoons. These were about 40m by 20m and about 3m deep. A known quantity of fish, small roach and chub, were put into one of the lagoons and was thoroughly protected so that no predators could gain access. An identical number of the same fish were put into another lagoon and that was left unprotected. The lagoons were monitored for cormorant visits and at the end of a year they were drained down and the fish recovered.

There had been significant losses from the protected lagoon, but as no cormorant could get in and there was no damage to the netting showing that other predators might have gained entrance these were put down to natural wastage such as you would expect from any fish population.

The unprotected lagoon had lost the majority of the fish as you would expect, but there were survivors - about 20% of the original number. Of those that had gone it was reasonable to assume that a similar number had gone through natural wastage as in the first lagoon. That left about 50% of the original number that could be attributed to the cormorants. Monitoring of cormorant visits seemed to show that there were frequent visits at first, tapering off as the year progressed.

There would be a number of reasons for this, but it is reasonable to assume that as the available food supply diminished so did the attraction and the birds simply went elsewhere. This work was repeated over three years with broadly similar results.

There is no doubt that cormorants can do serious damage under some circumstances. 100 cormorants on 44,000 acres of Corrib are not going to do a lot of harm at 1:440 acres. 10 cormorants working a shallow during spawning time for either trout or grayling WILL do a lot of harm. On a stocked trout fishery a case needs to be made on economic grounds and you will have to demonstrate that fact by recording cormorant damaged fish as a percentage of all fish caught and by logging cormorant numbers on a daily basis. If you play the hard numbers game people are more inclined to listen.

I hope the Government do take this problem seriously. I know Richard Benyon and I know he is concerned over this issue. Perhaps the RSPB should be bombarded with invoices for lost fish. After all, they want to protect the thing so why shouldn't they pay for its food?

Wild assertions like 10 cormorants will kill a fishery in a month will not work when confronting officialdom, a) because it verges on the hysterical, and b) because it isn't true.


I can only base the above statement on my fishery of approx 6acres and observations on what a bird takes.Obviously a larger acreage will need a higher number of birds.
Only on monday 1 bird in 40 minutes had 2 fish ate and 2 more damaged and had to be killed.That was in 40 minutes.
Hysterical,if it were your stock would you not be?

You can demonstrate all you want to the powers that issue licenses in Scotland and only very few are ever issued.Nobody wants to devastate and kill every bird,only a level working understanding on both sides.

I do agree the problem with cormorants tend to be mainly on our water from jan to mar/april at the latest,which is a good point but they are still a major problem all year for some elsewhere.

50% of a stock loss to a fishery runs into thousands of pounds per year.

Ps If every fishery ran year long studys on it for the purpose of scientific information,I would expect that many wouldnt finish it as they would be out of business due to loss of income.But maybe that is being a little hysterical and I can only say of my own observations.

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Kevin

Bob

Out of interest,how many fish were placed in each lagoon?
Was it done each year stocked again?

Weather conditions when the study was done.
Number of cormorants which visited over the study per year.

thanks in advance

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Kevin