[Maine-birds] Slightly OT......here we go again....

In today's Portland Press-Herald is an article indicating the US Fish and Wildlife Service will (probably) kill about 16,000 double-breasted cormorants on the Columbia River to "save" the salmon runs on that river.  Here's a link, but I'm not certain you'll be able to access the article without an account.  If you can, close the introduction in the left column and double click on the cormorant article to read it.

http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ODE/PortlandPressHerald/Default.aspx?href=MTPPH%2F2014%2F08%2F02&pageno=4&view=document

I was surprised, and disgusted, to learn that in recent decades the US Fish and Wildlife Service has been politically forced into killing cormorants (hundreds of thousands) instead of protecting them.  Despite one hundred years of studies that have shown cormorants have little impact on sport and commercial fisheries.  To learn more you might peruse a copy of "The Double-crested Cormorant," by Linda R. Wires (Yale Univ Press 2014), and illustrated by an artist friend of mine, Barry Mackay of Toronto.  This book catalogues the process leading to this situation, gives the history of cormorant studies and "control," and summarizes the number of cormorants killed in various parts of its range.  It's interesting, furthermore, to read about the Canadian response to a similar cormorant extermination campaign in that country.

Cheers (sort of),

BAB  

--
Bruce Bartrug
Nobleboro, Maine, USA
bbartrug@gmail.com
www.brucebartrug.com

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.  - Albert Einstein

--
Maine birds mailing list
maine-birds@googlegroups.com
http://groups.google.com/group/maine-birds
https://sites.google.com/site/birding207
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Maine birds" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to maine-birds+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.