Parks Canada’s Cormorant Cull Destroying Great Blue Heron Colony

Cormorant Defenders International (Media Release)

April 22, 2010

Once again Parks Canada has begun culling Double-crested Cormorants on Middle Island, the third year of a five year management plan. Parks Canada claims that the cormorants are destroying Middle Island and most have to be removed to protect the island ecosystem.

“Culling is impacting the other colonial waterbirds”, said Julile Woodyer, spokesperson for Cormorant Defenders International. “A case in point is the Great Blue Herons. The Great Blue Heron colony on Middle Island was one of the larger colonies on the Lake Erie Islands, but thanks to Parks Canada’s management activities on Middle Island, the Great Blue Heron colony is undergoing a dramatic change”, Woodyer continued. “According to Parks Canada’s own nest counts, for 4 years starting in 2003, the number of nesting pairs of Great Blue Herons increased from 143 to 333.”

Culling on Middle Island began in 2008. Since the culling began the Great Blue Heron colony has decline by a whopping 40% in the first 2 years of the 5 year program. Nest counts for Great Blue Herons shows a drop of 122 nesting pairs from 304 in the pre culling year, 2007 to 182 in 2009. At that rate, there should be serious cause for concern but to date Parks Canada refuses to acknowledge the damage they are causing.

“We have been present for all culling events on Middle Island,” said Liz White of Cormorant Defenders. “We have documented the effects of the cull, including the extreme disturbance of Great Blue Herons. In 2009, we documented extended lengths of time Great Blue Herons were driven from their nests during culling events.”

On Tuesday, the first day of the 2010 cull, we collected the same data,” White continued. “Some of the herons, who were incubating eggs were driven from their nests for extended periods of time ranging from 4 hours to the entire day, negatively impacting the eggs with extended absences from the nests. Some were laying eggs, a process which takes place over a number of days. When culling drives these birds off their nests during laying time, the birds lose those eggs.”

Both of these events violate of the Migratory Bird Convention Act and Regulations. Section 6 of the Act states Subject to subsection 5(9), no person shall (a) disturb, destroy or take a nest, egg, nest shelter, eider duck shelter or duck box of a migratory bird, or (b) have in his possession a live migratory bird, or a carcass, skin, nest or egg of a migratory bird and section 12 (h) of the regulations provides for “prohibiting the killing, capturing, injuring, taking or disturbing of migratory birds or the damaging, destroying, removing or disturbing of nests.

A formal complaint was submitted to Environment Canada, complete with video evidence and observational material to substantiate the claim. Additional information was gathered from Parks Canada’s own observations acquired through Access to Information. An investigation is ongoing. Whether the act will be enforced against the same Ministry that is conducting the cull is yet to be seen, but the evidence shows clear violation of the law.