Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Picture of a cormorant observed.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=512830&in_page_id=1770
Thought you guys would like this one.

Thanks a lot prentissbo. Now I have one more thing to have nightmares about.

Hardcore.

"The bird pounced on the foot-long pike with its hooked bill and pulled it to the surface of a lake."

Maybe my neighbor needs some cormorants to thin out the bizillion foot-long LMB that are overcrowding his pond.

Magnificent bird, my butt! I hate them.

Here is the first photo from the link:

If one of those flying toilets ever lands in my ponds it will never leave alive!

That's a belly that flies around like a bird if I ever saw one.

If one lands in my pond, the last thing he will ever hear is "CHINK-CHINK!".

Wonder if keeping a small alligator would be a good deterrent? I don't think gators eat many fish at all. They do eat snakes, frogs, and turtles, all of which I have an overabundance.

Perfect bird for this gun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhstuvzMiB0&feature=related

bobad, there is a pair of Osprey that have a nest at my neighbor's 7 acre pond. I rarely see other large birds of any type at that pond with any regularity. Last year I believe I saw one of the Ospreys attack some type of waterfowl on the opposite bank. It happened pretty quickly so I can't be sure, but it makes sense that the Ospreys would defend their territory. Also noteworthy is that I've never seen these Ospreys dive for fish in this pond. Maybe they hunt only when no one is around, but even if they do it seems like they're keeping many more birds away from the pond.

A question to all:

Do you guys have problems maintaining sufficient numbers of fish? I had the impression that overcrowding was more of an issue than recruitment.

GW,

You bring up some very valid points.

I don't think pondmeisters' hatred for birds like coromorants stems from a lack of recruitment (or not having enough fish) so much as the fact that THEY want to be the ones to control that population and manage things, not another predator (bird).

It's the idea of "if anyone is going to cull my fish, I want it to be ME (or someone I've allowed out there)." Or at least that's what it seems like to me. It's more of the principle of the matter than the actual fish being eaten.

I don't know if that's right or wrong, but it is what it is. At some point, though, we all have no choice but to let nature be nature.

I think one of the issues with cormorants (from what I've learned from other forum members) is that there is seldom ever just one. Many times there are flocks of them numbering in the 10's to 20's plus.

If we use the example that prentissbo provided, that water impoundment could lose many multiples of pike per day.

In the Great Lakes states and eventually the entire country we have another issue with fish eating birds. That is VHS virus transmission that causes major fish kills. I would be glad to post a study that shows the virus can be transmitted via feces by Great Blue Herons. If it can be done so by the herons I see no reason it wouldn't happen with commorants.

Addtionally has anyone seen what a flock of these birds will do? If you've never seen it is absolutely unbelieveable. I had one biologist tell me when planting salmonids in Lake Huron these birds will actually herd schools of the newly planted brown trout. Eventually they decimate them in Lake Huron to the effect of along with walleye predation reduce ultimate survival rates to less than 1/2 of 1 percent!

Yes I know they have to eat, but just as is the case with other species when they are protected they get out of control and the feds being as slow and incompetent as they are are slow to realize this. The otters which were reintroduced into my state and were once protected are becoming a nuciance to the extent that they can be removed with the proper permit.

I think Davatsa has got it right. Most of us want to think that we have some control over what happens in our pond. We fool ourselves into believing that we can bend mother nature's will to coincide with our own desires. So far I have never seen (saw, seed - I never know which word is correct) a cormorant at my pond. Died saw one at his place so they must be in the area. We do have two types of herons that patrol our shore. They take their fill. At first it drove me crazy watching the herons take MY fish (my precious). After a while I just decided to let the herons do their thing.

After all.....

It's not nice to fool mother nature!!!

For Cecil, it's his living. For most of us, it is a hobby.

Frankly I love to watch herons at my pond, but if I was in Cecil's shoes, I would feel differently.

Like Cecil said, on the Great Lakes, all you see anymore is the comorant and they can wipe out a fish hatch in a blink of an eye.

For pond owners, one comoroant will eat 6-12 fish a day, averagin weight being 1-4lbs. That is a day!

They are like winged otters.

That deep throatin b******.Leave that fish alone.I hope he had to c*** that thing out whole.