Five islands on Wisconsin's Lake Michigan and Green Bay shorelines are now home to more than 12,000 nesting pairs of fish-feasting double-crested cormorants, and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources would like to slash that number in half.
The move is in response to grumbling from fishermen who claim that the big black birds, each of which can gobble a pound of flesh a day, are responsible for depleting fish stocks. The DNR is also worried that the once-endangered species that has a history of denuding the islands it colonizes will continue to expand its range.
But there is one potentially huge hitch in the plan: One of the islands the DNR is targeting is a national wildlife refuge, and at this point its managers have no plans to allow anyone to start snuffing out its occupants. The woman in charge of Spider Island off Door County wasn't even aware the DNR was eyeing her little patch of federally designated wilderness as part of a cormorant-control plan that the state agency will be sharing with the public in the next few weeks.
"My prime management focus has been - and hopefully will continue to be - protection of nesting and migratory birds," said Horicon National Wildlife Refuge manager Patti Meyers, who also oversees the 23-acre island.
DNR officials are fuzzy about the details of a plan they have yet to even formally draft, but the agency announced last week it will hold three public meetings in the next few weeks in Madison, Green Bay and Sturgeon Bay.
DNR biologists say the plan is still fluid. In fact, at this point it isn't even a formal plan. It's just an idea, and the idea is to get rid of 6,000 nesting pairs of birds occupying Cat Island in southern Green Bay, Hat and Jack islands off Door County in Green Bay, and Pilot and Spider islands in Lake Michigan.
"We hope to develop the final plan with input from the public," said DNR fisheries biologist Paul Peeters. "These are just conceptual ideas that we want to share."
Peeters said bird numbers would be reduced primarily by oiling eggs, a practice that doesn't kill full-fledged birds. Instead, it suffocates chick embryos before they get a chance to hatch. Oiling is more effective than smashing eggs because it keeps the birds from simply moving on and laying new eggs.
In other cases, where the birds appear to be colonizing new areas, they could be shot, Peeters said.
Meyers said she plans to attend at least one of the meetings and is open to hearing the science behind the DNR's plan. She is clearly skeptical about the prospects of allowing people to kill birds or destroy their eggs in the very place they are supposed to be protected.
Cormorant numbers have exploded around the Great Lakes in the decades since the government banned the pesticide DDT in 1972. Similar cormorant control measures have taken place in Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio in recent years.
Some bird advocates acknowledge the cormorant population has expanded to the point where the birds are harming habitat for other species, and that could justify reducing their numbers. But they are dubious about killing the birds in the name of saving fish stocks.
Dan Thomas, president of the Great Lakes Sport Fishing Council, however, says a thriving colony of cormorants can have "dramatic impacts" on area fish numbers and that Wisconsin should move on with its control program immediately.Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
