Articles and News             On Cormorants by Dave Horn As recently as the 1970s the sighting of a Double-crested Cormorant in Ohio was a noteworthy birding event, especially inland away from Lake Erie. Peterjohn in The Birds of Ohio says that fewer than 10 annual reports of cormorants was normal. Cormorant populations had been decimated by hunting, habitat changes and chronic pesticide exposure, and the birds had not nested in Ohio in many decades. All that has changed. Beginning in the early 1980s cormorants were observed more and more frequently and in larger flocks, especially along Lake Erie. In 1987, after an absence of nearly a century, the Double-crested Cormorant returned to Ohio as a nesting species. We welcomed the cormorant as a symbol of environmental recovery, of a "cleaned-up" Lake Erie. They kept coming. In 1992, 186 pairs nested on West Sister Island, home of the largest colonies of Great Blue and Black-crowned Night Herons, Great and Snowy Egrets, and the only population of Little Blue Herons in the Great Lakes region. By 1995 there were nearly 1500 cormorant pairs on West Sister. In 1996 a single flock of 15,000 cormorants flew past Kelleys Island. The cormorant population continues to increase at an estimated six percent annually, due in part to cleaner lakes and an abundance of small fish. The problem is that cormorants destroy the nesting habitat for herons, and ultimately for themselves. Their droppings combined with uneaten fish parts increase soil nitrogen to toxic levels, and the trees die. Cormorants can nest on the ground but herons won't. The Black-crowned Night Heron has been eliminated from East Sister Island (Canada), and its numbers, along with those of Great Egrets, have declined precipitously on West Sister. The Great Egret is not only a great bird to watch, it's the symbol of National Audubon. A solution is not easy to find. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, after considerable study and debate, is issuing a "public resource depredation order" allowing state and federal wildlife agencies to implement a management program to control cormorants where they impact public resources. Wildlife, including herons and egrets, are public resources. Columbus Audubon has communicated with Fish and Wildlife that wherever possible, non-lethal means be pursued for management of cormorants (or any other bird species). Breaking News!  Columbus Audubon, in collaboration with Audubon Ohio, has approved a statement on cormorant management and control policy.  To see this statement, click here. For more information, visit http://migratorybirds.fws.gov/issues/cormorant/cormorant.html . (Thanks to August Froehlich for bringing this to my attention.) Dave Horn is Professor of Entomology at the Ohio State University. He is vice president of Columbus Audubon, chairman of our conservation committee, Avid Birder participant, and reformed Hell's Birder. Page updated 03/08/04 © Columbus Audubon 2004