Algonquin Adventures / influx of cormorants

**Posted by Gormy** 9/27/2021 8:53 am

Is it only me or have other people noticed an increase in the cormorant population over the last few years?

Does this have an impact on the loon population?

I was on a Craig lake last weekend and only saw cormorants, no loons which was different from the past. This may only be a coincidence but made me wonder.

**Posted by Jdbonney** 9/27/2021 10:14 am

They are increasing all over the province. I don’t know the reason, or the effect on loons or other birds. Anecdotally I’ve heard their nesting sites are destructive and they tend to eat a lot of fish. I think gull island in the north arm of Ope is now cormorant island but I haven’t been up there to confirm it.

**Posted by RobW** 9/27/2021 12:20 pm

Cormorant populations are increasing. In some areas this appears to be an expansion of their range while in other areas it still seems to be population recovery. I don't have a reference handy but as fish eating birds, cormorant populations were undoubtedly hurt by DDT the same as raptor populations including Bald Eagles and Osprey which are other fish eating species.

**Posted by MooseWhizzer Dave** 9/28/2021 3:00 pm

I really enjoy birding, and trying to identify birds, etc., on my canoeing adventures. I definitely have some favorites: common loon, crazy merganzers, red wing blackbirds, pileated woodpeckers, any raptors, chickadees and dark-eyed juncos, herons, bitterns, wood ducks, terns, black skimmers, nuthatches, Semipalmated Plovers, and Sanderlings. But there are birds I could do without. Three: European Starlings (invasive SOB's), English Sparrows (invasive, but they are so doggone cute it is kind of hard to dislike them entirely). (When I was a kid at a vacation spot, we had one that came around the same time every day, wanting to be fed, which my sister and I did. We named him Elmer, and he'd jump right into your hand.), and cormorants (because they can just take over a lake, can displace other birds, and can be so hard on fish populations. Plus that profile in flight....blech. Unattractive bird. I always think of going over that bridge near Hamilton and seeing approximately.....I'm going to go with 87 kabillion, but I Might be a little low with that estimates.

**Posted by PaPaddler** 9/29/2021 8:44 am

Here's a link to an article from researchers at the University of Minnesota to offer a bit of perspective. I believe the most substantial impact on reducing Cormorant numbers was human-driven and intentional and their recovery to the levels of today (substantially lower than historic levels) is related primarily to protection measures and a small amount due to reduction of the use of DDT (their most substantial reductions occurred in the late 19th century before DDT existed).

Today's opinions expressed above with a disdain for the bird (of which I previously shared...until reading more and understanding that they should hold a natural position of far greater numbers) is referred to in the article as:
"...perception of overabundance rests on socio-political rather than biological or ecological factors."
=13pxhttps://bioone.org/journals/waterbirds/volume-29/issue-1/1524-4695_2006_29_9_HPOTDC_2.0.CO_2/Historic-Populations-of-the-Double-crested-Cormorant-Phalacrocorax-auritus/10.1675/1524-4695(2006)29[9:HPOTDC]2.0.CO;2.full

**Posted by MooseWhizzer Dave** 9/29/2021 4:12 pm

As long as I can still dislike Starlings I'm good.

**Posted by PaPaddler** 10/01/2021 7:28 am

That's fine...just don't let it drag you down! I still get that same gut feeling about Cormorants; it's likely the same reaction many had to raptors in centuries past - that they upset the balance and prey upon the species we love so we tend to dislike them.

The story I had heard as a young student is that Starlings were introduced to North America via an Edgar Allen Poe fan who wanted to have all of the birds mentioned in Poe works in a museum/aviary but some escaped...and now we literally have millions upon millions of those.