Cormorants
Information is being sent to clubs and owners about
a paper/report by Dr Heinz Kindermann that is being
presented to the the EU Committee on Fisheries, all about the problems created
by the excess numbers of cormorants. We
are urging everyone clubs and individual members to write to their MEP’s
seeking their support for the implementation of a European-wide action plan to
tackle these issues. The report will be voted on by the Committee on
Fisheries on November 5th and by the European Parliament’s plenary
on December 4th.
It would be a significant
improvement if so many letters could be sent in that made our elected
representatives think seriously about the damage done by the excessive numbers
of these birds.
It seems to me that the best way of tackling the increasing threat to fish, course as well as game, posed by the changing lifestyle habits of cormorants is for us all to co ordinate our efforts rather than pursue individual initiatives. I get no sense that NE are taking an holistic approach to their cormorant policy and it strikes me that they are overly swayed by pressures applied by RSPB and the bird lobby. They need work to a position where the achievement of natural balance is the objective rather than seeking to protect one species to the detriment of another species or permit damage to the local ecosystem. This longer term strategy should go in concert with local initiatives to target specific threats and I will be putting a proposal to Council setting out the measures we can take within the constraints imposed by NE.
I would urge you to put pen to paper.
It's rather more overcast here this morning after the glorious autumn day we had yesterday. Despite my optimistic predictions of good fishing I know of two members who blanked on the river, but they were after salmon rather than trout and the water is now rather too low for salmo salar.