What is worse than a flock of cormorants on your pond.........A flock of Pelicans!!!

T. To think I was worried about a few cormorants...... dangit

What the heck?? In your part of the woods?? They got lost. I have watched them feed on big lakes. They will actually form a "death or feeding circle" around a school of shad etc... and tighten the circle up as they finish them off. Would hate to see that on my pond!! Hope you get rid of them soon. Good luck. Let us know how it turns out.

Maybe a beaver trap will help.

Have had a few flocks of pelicans show up on ponds in Central Oklahoma.

NOW I have visions of flocks of pelicans eating all my fish while I'm at work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would rather have pelicans than cormorants.

This morning I encouraged a flock of cormorants to leave the pond. A Bald Eagle flew away at the same time. Not 45 minutes later those guys showed up. What the heck. Is my pond the new fast food drive through???

That does not sound good at all. Bet ya a dollar to a donut they will be back in the morning. I once had a flock of cormorants show up and after I got them off the pond I found a couple of dead HSB and larger cnbg along with around 150 4" tfs dead a floating. And that is only what I saw!! I would suggest you declare war asap.

I saw pelican's doing the exact same thing on Lake Fork yesterday. I had no clue they were feeding.

We've had a lot of birds this last few weeks too. No pelicans, but seagulls, bald eagles, GBH, cormorants, and GW egrets. Tadpoles are coming up in the warmer afternoon water, and it's been almost impossible to keep the GBH and egrets away.

Otters. They have totally wiped me out in the past three months. Both ponds. There is nothing I can do about it. We can't see anything below the pond banks from the house. The ponds are 600-800 feet away. Ponds are in expanded city limits so no shooting or trapping. Guess I am done. Hundreds of pounds of feeding wasted. Feel like getting the dirt guy back and fill them all in.

John get a trap and catch their butts . Don't give up
No one will know but you

Too late now for my former fish. Neighbors can see ponds from their property but I cannot. They would report me to the police. The property is long and narrow. The portion the ponds are on is about 1,200 ft x 300 ft. My house is near one end, but the only suitable clay for ponds is on the other end. I couldn't afford the cost of moving clay to my end, where it's all gravel, plus a big sewer line easement through one corner behind the house. Think I will start fishing public waters more, or just buy my fish already cleaned. It's so frustrating! Comparable to having your tractor shed burn down.

I've had them all - cormorants, herons, pelicans, and river otters.
The otters are the worst. They'll decimate a pond. I've also had beavers remove about 80 trees.

Speaking of cormorants, has anyone had success scaring them off with “bird tape”, hanging owl silhouettes, GBH decoys, etc? I think I lost some fish in Hurricane Harvey and then I’ve seen some cormorants at my pond. I’m not there often enough to scare them off myself. We did a fish survey a few weeks ago and hardly saw anything, although it was poor conditions for the survey, very cold and windy. I need to figure out how to get rid of the cormorants!! Thanks.

.22 mag seems to work well at scaring them away.....

Hi Fayette,
The only “legal” way I have had success with is this:
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=28452&Number=442375#Post442375

Hope it will help you.

Thank you for the advice!

John- that is rough...will the Otters leave once food source is gone and not come back? Not sure what your goals are but maybe stock one of the ponds with fish you catch from public waters to let them spawn and repopulate cheaply once no sign of the Otters.

Conibar traps to catch otters can be set below waters surface and not seen unless someone is trespassing. And a meeting with the neighbors might help. And or run the traps after dark. And I agree with the possibility to replace the fish from local lakes. Fishing close to or during spawning times can sometimes produce a lot of fish. There are some recipe's here on how to transport fish.

John, sorry about your fish. That's a tough one.

Our now 25 month long local state of drought isn't helping either.

Mr Bald Eagle watching over my pond. He is crashing the cormorants party.

We have a bald eagle too. I wish we had one 4x as big that could carry away a 30 plus pound otter.

Last year around this time, I had one at the pond everyday and on one occasion I came over the hill and got a real close up sighting, one I will always remember. But, he wound up saying at the pond for 3 months and by that time I was more than ready to see him leave.

Commorants diving to pluck remoras off a whale shark

How in the World did they get that all on video!!!??

Thats cool.

I've had those things that were free swimming, hang around a group of divers while we were ending a deep water current dive drifting doing our safety stop, looking for a place to attach themselves. A little bit unnerving watching a 2+ foot long one dart around looking for a host and preferring it not be me.

Remoras get pretty big. Shark suckers, a smaller fish but with similar lifestyle, tried to stick onto my wife for about five minutes during a reef dive (it was only 6" long). I thought it was funny but she did not see the humor.

They will definitely leave a hicky.

Mexicans call them stick fish.

After seeing the video, I could see where cormorants might be a good thing. First time I ever saw a good reason for keeping them around. The problem is I don't have any whales in my pond, so they need to keep their arse in the big waters and out of my pond.

A year almost to the day.......the Pelicans are back along with the cormorants. I had to encourage them to move on down the road.