Suffolk Ornithologists’ Group
Licenced to kill or scare? Can anglers learn to live with cormorants? Two subspecies of Great Cormorant occur in Europe: the ‘Atlantic’ subspecies Phalacrocorax carbo carbo and the ‘Continental’ subspecies P.c. sinensis. The Great Cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo carbo is essentially a coastal and cliff dwelling species breeding around the North Atlantic coasts of northern France, Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Norway and the Kola peninsula in north west Russia across the Atlantic to Greenland and eastern North America while inland breeding populations are of the sub species Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis. In Britain and throughout Europe Cormorants are perceived as a threat to fish farms and recreational fisheries. Historically Cormorants in Britain were seen as a threat to fish ponds maintained by monasteries and other landowners. The effects of persecution were compounded by reduced breeding success (in the 1950-60s) as a result of pesticide pollution. The expansion of the range of the sub-species P. c. sinensis was low during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most likely a combination of habitat loss and continued persecution. France had fewer than 60 pairs at the turn of the nineteenth century (Marion 1991). Increased protection Growing concerns for these relatively small populations during the twentieth century led to protective legislation being introduced, first in the Netherlands (1965) and Denmark (1971), and then widely throughout Europe under Annex 1 of the EC Birds Directive (1979). Cormorants were afforded protection in the UK by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (WCA) and the EU Birds Directive, making it illegal to kill them or to take or
destroy their eggs and nests (when in use or being built). With increased protection through legislation and cleaner fresh water habitats the numbers of inland breeding Cormorants in Europe has increased and allowed the continental subspecies Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis to extend its wintering range into Britain & Ireland prompting increasing claims of damage to fisheries. As will be discussed, claims that inland breeding Cormorants and large winter roosts are driven by an increase in populations of a ‘non-native’ invasive species must also be addressed before we can engage in productive discussions with angling clubs and fishery owners. The increased breeding success of the continental subspecies has led to claims by influential angling writers, with the enthusiastic support of the angling press, that Britain is being invaded by a nonnative invader that threatens the ecology of our freshwater habitats. The colonisation of inland waters by both subspecies has undoubtedly been aided by the increase in well stocked fishing lakes and reservoirs, with illegal shooting fuelling the ongoing controversy until the government authorised the legal shooting of Cormorants with a nationally limited number of licences issued first by English Nature and now by its successor Natural England. The inland Cormorant Genetic markers of both subspecies are found in inland colonies in the UK (Winney, B, J et al. 2001) with further evidence of the two subspecies interbreeding (Goostrey et al.1998, Newson 2000), while birds of the P. c. sinensis type were first recorded at
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