Fishermen have little love for cormorants
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No Cormorant Love
Some fishermen say they're in competition with the fish-eating birds.
A 3-month-old cormorant with a big appetite is being nursed to health at a clinic in North Kingstown.
NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I.—A 3-month-old cormorant with a big appetite is being nursed to health at a clinic in North Kingstown.
But it’s in competition for the same thing prized by local fishermen.
Cormorants are fish-eating birds that will dive 50 feet below the surface to get their next meal.
“Cormorants will dive and get wet and they stand with their wings outstretched so that the sun and the wind actually will dry their feathers,“ said Kristin Fletcher, of the Wildlife Rehabilitators Association of Rhode Island.
The young cormorant was discovered roadside near Second Beach in Middletown last week and has been nursed back to health. It consumes $150 of fish a week, which is a huge expense for the Wildlife Clinic of Rhode Island.
But after a few more weeks of rehabilitation, it will be able to be set free again.
“When he arrived, he was very, very thin, clearly had been without mom for a while,“ Fletcher said.
But you won’t find a lot of sympathy for the species at the town dock in Wickford.
Al Kennedy said fishermen like him hate them.
“Because they eat all the little baby fish … Flat-fishing was a great commercial fishery,“ he said. “There isn’t any anymore.“
Cormorants nearly went extinct in the early 1970s due to pesticides and hunting. They are now federally protected.
The state Department of Environmental Management recorded none in Rhode Island in 1985. Since then, they’re numbers have grown and have remained stable for the past 10 years at 2,000 nesting pairs.
“Anywhere between 80 to 85 percent don’t survive their first year because of starvation, disease, human impact,“ Fletcher said.
Fishermen—having been hit on all sides with restrictions and regulations of their industry—say the cormorant is one more thing that, for years, has been taking a bite out of their catch of the day.
A representative for the DEM said pinning declining fish stocks on the cormorant makes them nothing more than a convenient scapegoat.
Another cormorant was recently brought to the wildlife clinic, which is strapped for cash to feed the hungry birds.
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