Cost of the Cull

Windsor Star - Editorial

May 6, 2009

The damage that Parks Canada claims cormorants are doing to the trees and vegetation on Middle Island can't possibly compare to the damage that the cull of the birds is doing to taxpayers' wallets.

Last year's cull of 211 birds on the remote Lake Erie island cost $130,000 -- that's an astonishing $616 to kill one double-crested cormorant. The cull was conducted over two days -- $65,000 a day -- and that included costs like equipment and research, but not wages.

The news for taxpayers gets worse. As of May 1, another 752 cormorants had been killed in this year's cull. (At $616 a bird, that would be $463,232.) And Parks Canada is just getting started; the cull will last another three years.

As we cautioned before the first cull, nature has a way of balancing things out. Man should interfere in this cyclical process reluctantly and only after careful consideration because his best intentions can create new ecological problems. We still have questions about the need to kill birds nesting in a national park in the middle of the lake with not a person in sight. But we are absolutely certain the cull should be stopped on the basis of the cost.