HOOK AND FUR By Bob Brown The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' culling of Columbia River double-crested cormorants is under fire. The Audubon Society of Portland and other conservation and animal welfare groups have filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oregon to stop the Corps' operation. The plaintiffs said culling of cormorants is just a diversion from the real problem of fish recovery, the operation of federal dams on the Columbia River. This the second year the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has allowed the Corps to cull cormorants in an effort to reduce their predation on juvenile salmon which are listed as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. The Corps requested the depredation permit from the Service in late January and received the go-ahead March 18. Since then, a Corps contractor has shot 2,185 cormorants from boats in open water between East Sand Island and the Astoria-Megler Bridge, and last week oiled and destroyed 1,052 cormorant nests on the island . The permit allows the Corps to destroy 5,247 cormorant nests through oiling by coating the eggs with 100 percent corn oil which suffocates the growing embryo inside the shell. Oiling operations will continue through the next few weeks, said Corps spokesperson Matt Rabe. The 2016 depredation permit allows the Corps to lethally take 3,114 double- created cormorants, 93 Brant's cormorants and 9 Pelagic cormorants. The latter two species are allowed due to the recognition that some birds are not double-crested cormorants will be misidentified and shot. Last year, the Corps culled over 1.700 birds and oiled more than 5,000 nets. "It is completely unconscionable that federal agencies have failed to address the primary cause of salmon decline for more than two decades and are frantically working to kill as many birds as possible before the court rules in our case. In every sense of the term, it is an utterly senseless slaughter; however, it is unlikely the case will be resolved within the next few months. Obviously it very frustrating because federal agents are out in the estuary day after day shooting birds out of the sky.GÇ¥ said Bob Sallinger, Portland Audubon's conservation director. Whether pro or con on this issue, the fact remains while East Sand Island double-crested cormorant predation rates vary from year to year, according to the Corps, over the past 15 years cormorants on average consume 11 million juvenile salmon and steelhead annually. In recent years (2011-13), researchers say, consumption has averaged 18.5 million per year. Average annual double-crested cormorant predation rates of juvenile steelhead originating upstream of Bonneville Dam have ranged from 2 to 7 percent over the past 15 years (depending on the run, or distinct population segment and year). Double-created cormorants are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and are native to the Columbia River Estuary. Controlling wildlife populations isn't something new. It goes on all the time, especially when a valuable resource is threatened. Why the hue and cry about the Corps culling operation is questionable to some individuals, while not so with others. Understandably, cormorants are only trying to make a living, but they are a serious threat to an entity listed as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. The Corps is not trying to eradicate the cormorants, but simply trying to control their numbers.
Bob Brown lives in Roy and is a freelance outdoors writer. He can be reached at robertb1285@centurylink.net
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