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CORMORANTS - THE TRUTH There are a good number of reasons why I ‘retired’ to Norfolk. 800 of them lived in the trees at Walthamstow Reservoirs just yards from the River Lee, which I was attempting to manage as a fishery on behalf of local anglers. They were also one of the reasons I got involved in the political aspects of defending our fisheries against these voracious predators. I sometimes wish I had taken an easier option like trying to bring peace to the Middle East! The purpose of this article is to tell you how your various national representatives have tried to deal with the problem of fish eating birds. The main one of these in this area is the Cormorant but it should be appreciated that Goosanders and, to a lesser extent, Herons are a problem in other parts of the Country. Cormorants, like all other birds, are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 which resulted from the Wild Birds Directive issued by Brussels in 1979. The Directive does allow member states to have certain exceptions to the law whereby certain species can be ‘managed’ under licence, subject to certain criteria that are listed in the Act. These are known as derogations. However one of the rules for these is that the licensing authority has to submit a return to the European Parliament every year giving details of derogations granted. That is to say how many licences have been issued, why they were issued and how many birds have been shot. There are, of course, exceptions to this, which are birds defined as pests (e.g. rooks, pigeons) or ‘huntable’ (e.g. pheasant, mallard). In this Country the licensing authority is DEFRA (used to be MAFF) and they have to produce this return every year. Until about 5 years ago MAFF used to call a meeting of all interested parties where they discussed the number of licences applied for and granted. I attended these meetings representing NAFAC. The other national bodies such as NFA, S&T Association were also represented, as were the various conservation bodies such as RSPB and English Nature. The Environment Agency also attended but rarely made any contribution. The meetings always started with the MAFF officials giving the latest statistics. The RSPB then said how good it was that bird numbers were increasing. At this point one of the angling representatives said that they should all be shot. The bird people would then say that we would never stop them coming across from Europe, which was countered by one of the anglers saying that we stopped the luftwaffe so birds shouldn’t be problem. From this point on the meeting deteriorated into a general argument with everyone shouting at each other. Needless to say nothing was ever achieved by this. Then MAFF announced that the Government intended to spend £1 million on some scientific research that would solve all our problems. The result of this research was that we got 5 great volumes of books measuring over 4 inches that, as far as fisheries are concerned, could be summarised in a few words, which are ‘ Piscivorous birds are a problem at some fisheries’. The researchers also concluded that more research was needed (no surprises there then!) which resulted in a further £500,000 being spent on research into refuges. I will deal with the result of this research later. At about the time this research was published the Moran Committee was formed to make a unified submission to the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Review Group. This committee comprised representatives from 13 national angling and fisheries bodies under the Chairmanship of Lord Moran. It was agreed by the members of this committee that in addition to responding to the review we should also try to do something about bird predation as all the squabbling with the other groups was not getting us anywhere. We therefore suggested to MAFF that they set up a working party so that anglers and fisheries interests could discuss the problems with RSPB and other to see if an acceptable solution could be found. MAFF declined this, as they did not think it would work. The Moran Committee then decided that if MAFF would not do it we would do it ourselves and somehow I got elected to take the lead in this venture ably assisted by Chris Poupard of the S&T Association and Bruno Broughton of the Angling Trades Association. After a bit of coaxing and cajoling we finally got all the various groups together and our first meeting was held at Fishmongers Hall in London on 16th January 2001. Later this group became known as the Moran Committee Joint Bird Group and now comprises representatives of the Moran Committee, RSPB, English Nature (EN), Defra, The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Sciences (CEFAS) and the Environment Agency. The first meeting was rather like the closing scenes of the Gunfight at OK Coral with everyone looking nervously at each other and not wishing to fire the first shot. However once we got going we found that there was a lot of common ground. One thing that was immediately obvious was that there was a tremendous amount of ignorance about these birds, the laws protecting them and the implications for fisheries and angling. We decided that our first task was to rectify this so we set about producing a leaflet entitled ‘Cormorants – The Facts’. (Copies of this and other documents can be downloaded from our dedicated website which is www.cormorants.info). It has to be accepted that this leaflet was not universally popular with anglers but it did achieve its objective of getting everyone aware of the true facts about these birds. What it did not do is offer any practical help for fishery managers or clubs that had a problem. We therefore decided to produce a booklet offering practical advice on how to protect fisheries which was based on old NAFAC Information Sheet we first produced in 1998. Believe you me this was no mean feat. Here we were trying to produce a booklet in conjunction with RSPB and EN telling you how to scare birds away and if that didn’t work how to apply for a licence to shoot them and even an easy guide how to fill the form in. Not easy! But we did it and the booklet ‘Protect you Fishery from Cormorants’ can be obtained through your local Consultative or via the website already mentioned. This booklet has proved beneficial to many fishery managers although it has to be acknowledged that it cannot help in all circumstances. Where do we go from here because without doubt fish eating birds are still a very serious problem for many of our fisheries and many anglers are frustrated by the lack of action by the Government to deal with the problem. Over a year ago Martin Read, an angling correspondent for the Angling Star and now a member of the NAFAC National Council, presented the Government with a petition signed by about 35,000 people demanding action but as far as I am aware they haven’t even acknowledged receiving it let alone acted upon it. They obviously don’t see it as a priority problem and who can really blame them because their own statistics show that they only get about 130 applications a year to kill birds from all over the country. I am constantly being told this when I raise the problem with Ministers. The reality, of course, is that there are probably more that 130 fisheries in Norfolk alone that have a problem with these birds. However without the hard evidence of lots of applications the Government will continue to ignore us. We are also not helped when DEFRA arrange a conference to discuss the problems of these birds that very few angling representatives attend. A recent meeting was held in Bristol and apart from me representing the Moran Committee the only other angling and fisheries representatives were four members of NAFAC Council. None of the other national bodies were represented. Now I know Bristol is not the best of venues and I acknowledge that the other groups all had reasons for not attending but the impression this gives to Government is not really that good. It seems to me that some representative groups would rather court popularity with their members and spout empty rhetoric rather than try to find an acceptable solution to the problem. I fully accept that a large number of anglers would like to see a widespread cull but the evidence from recent research is that it wouldn’t work even if it were acceptable to modern society. Members of NAFAC will know about Redcafe, which is a European funded programme to Reduce the Conflict between Cormorants and Fisheries on a Pan European Scale led by Dr David Carss from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Scotland. The objective of the project is to enhance collaborations between ornithologists, fisheries scientists, socio-economists, anglers and commercial fishers in an attempt to find acceptable solutions to bird predation throughout Europe. The research carried out by members of this group into the population dynamics of cormorants has proved that the more you kill the more they breed providing there is food available. This is backed up by a project in Austria where for a number of years their Government allowed cormorants to be shot. Now Austria is on one of the known migratory routes for European cormorants. The average yearly population is about 6 thousand birds. So for four years they shot up to 6 thousand birds a year. At the end of this period they counted them and they still had 6 thousand. They also got reported to the European Parliament and are currently awaiting proceedings against them for breaching the Wild Birds Directive. It has been estimated that to make any difference to the cormorant population in Europe we would have to shoot up to 100,000 birds a year for a number of years and this would only reduce the population by 30%. Now I suspect many anglers would say that was OK but we don’t live in isolation and we have to acknowledge the views of others. Even if we did it the remaining 70% would still fish in the most productive sites, which of course are the ones that anglers favour. One of the main conclusions of the Redcafe group is that ‘Human intervention has disturbed the balance of nature’. I have not read the final report yet so I am not sure what they mean as human intervention but it could include over fishing at sea and the recent rapid increase in intensively stocked fisheries (both game and coarse). After all if you put a bird table in your garden what do you expect to visit it? I am sure I will not make many friends for saying that but we cannot ignore the facts. Much of the recent research into fish refuges was carried out on waters in Norfolk so many of you will be acquainted with the results and will have your own opinions. The conclusion reached was that in ponds with refuges the consumption of fish by cormorants is about 60% lower than in those without. Of course this may just mean that it takes the birds longer to get at them all! The reality is that this is another way that in certain circumstances can help in protecting fish stocks but it is not a universal solution. It is certainly of very limited use as far as rivers are concerned. Expert worldwide opinion is that a localised approach offers the best chance of solving the problem, which is why the Joint Bird Group hoped that something could be achieved through Fisheries Action Plans. However these seem to be lacking impetus throughout the Country, the usual reason being lack of resources and funding. Still that’s another story for another day. There has recently been a relaxation of the law protecting cormorants in America. Perhaps there is something we can learn from this. Where do we go from here? The only honest answer I can give is that I don’t know. What I do know is that I, and others, remain committed to working with others to try to find a sustainable and acceptable solution to a very difficult problem for many of our fisheries. I am sorry if this article does not fill the reader with hope but I suspect you would rather read the truth. Terry Mansbridge 6.11.03. ©
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