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Cormorant, Why do Fisheries Have to Put up With Them?
The world famous Loch Leven trout is endangered by an invasion of cormorants but the fishery owners can do nothing to protect what was once known as Salmo Levensis, a unique strain of trout that has been used to populate rivers and lochs the world over. Will we see the day when we have to beg stock from New Zealand, Africa or South America to repopulate the loch?
BEAUTIFUL Loch Leven, near by Kinross
For a good day's fishing the angler is seldom at a loss,
For the Loch it abounds with pike and trout,
Which can be had for the catching without any doubt;
And the scenery around it is most beautiful to be seen,
Especially the Castle, wherein was imprisoned Scotland's ill-starred
Queen.
William McGonigall (19th century poet)
The announcement in May 2006 that the Loch Leven fishery has lost £500,000 and will scale down angling operations by closing the Tarhill hatchery and reducing the number of boats is symptomatic of the state of affairs faced by many fisheries that have a cormorant problem.
Imagine a farmer losing sheep to wild cats and being prevented from doing anything about it by law. Day after day the farmer loses stock to marauding carnivores until one day his farm is no longer viable despite all the work he puts in to protect his flock. There would be an outcry that he was being prevented from taking action, and rightly so. Sheep, cattle even chickens are valuable - so are trout.
Throughout the country fishery owners are having their livelihoods destroyed by cormorants taking fish that they have either raised or bought at great expense. Large numbers of livestock, fish worth millions of pounds, end up as free bird food.
What we are concerned with on our fisheries is the great cormorant of which there are two subspecies Phalacrocorax carbo and P. carbo sinensis. The subspecies carbo is a coastal bird which has for some reason decided to move inland and is the object of concern.
Recent reports of dead cormorants being washed ashore on the North sea coast have been linked to global warming. Cold water currents that would normally have flowed into the North Sea in winter, keeping the sea temperature down, have been interrupted. As a result sand eel populations have been reduced. Sand eels are a key source of food for cormorants, other sea birds and for seals. This shortage of food might be what has prompted carbo to come inland away from its natural environment.
According to www.cormorants.info there are over 1500 cormorants roosting inland in the UK with as many as 25,000 over wintering here and 10,000 over wintering inland. It is estimated that an adult cormorant needs about a pound of fish per day to sustain it. Cormorants focus on fish ranging from 2 to 6 inches in length, although they have been known to take or attempt to take larger fish. That means that during the peak period in winter those inland cormorants eat 5 tonnes of fish per day and wound many more fish in their pursuit of food.
Let’s keep the sums simple to convert that tonnage consumed to the number of fish eaten based on a generous size of individual fish as being 4 ounces. We come to the horrific figure of 40,000 fish a day, 280,000 a week and during the entire over wintering period, let’s say 25 weeks. The total comes to 7,000,000 fish and this does not include what the cormorants resident for the rest of year eat!
Looking at the situation on Loch Leven we see a world famous fishery in adversity. During the later half of the 1900's Loch Leven suffered from eutrophication on a large scale as a result of the discharge of badly treated effluent from surrounding towns entering feeder streams. Then there was the leaching into the loch of fertiliser used on the surrounding farms. This enrichment caused mass algal blooms which affected catch returns with a resultant and steady decline in the popularity if this internationally renowned fishery.
In order to stem the decline and take pressure of the brown trout the controversial decision was taken to stock the loch with rainbow trout. This was a stop gap measure intended to provide good sport while the wild brown trout recovered. In the meantime and not before time, action was taken to improve water treatment and excessive use of artificial fertiliser, consequently the loch was showing clear signs of improvement.
Then the cormorant problem developed.
In the case of Loch Leven, where there is a large population of cormorants, predation is devastating. Experts from Rutland have found that predation by cormorants on trout can be reduced significantly by changing stocking policy from an average one pound to one pound four ounce fish, which is a good solution for a stocked fishery like Rutland. Loch Leven however is an ancient natural loch where the brown trout population is dependent on natural spawning in the many feeder streams. This means that thousands of juvenile fish, the future of the loch, are in danger of becoming cormorant food and unlike Rutland, Loch Leven does not have a varied population of course fish to distract cormorants.
The attraction of Loch Leven has always been the unique wild brown trout fishing which the loch offers. This predation on wild brown trout threatens the jewel in our angling crown.
The received
advice is that cormorant populations can be managed and a number of
techniques are suggested:
-
Habitat management.
-
Human disturbance.
-
Preventing access to the loch by birds.
-
Roost removal.
-
Stock management.
-
Building fish refuges.
-
Automated scarecrows.
-
Noise generators.
-
Visual scarers.
-
Shooting to scare.
In the case of Loch Leven we can dismiss stock management for it is naturally stocked, so what about habitat management and human disturbance. Loch Leven and its shores are a National Nature Reserve and the loch covers 13 square kilometres. With losses of £500k on fishing alone there can be no hope that the fishery can afford to manage the habitat for fish. As an NNR the objective is to minimise disturbance to this important bird sanctuary which has an internationally significant population of swans and geese among the very many species of birds that live and breed there, human disturbance needs to be minimised.
Lets not bother with trying to prevent birds accessing a 13 square kilometre loch although it is suggested that stretching wires across a fishery works! I won't bother with the sums for that. Roost removal on an NNR would be contrary to the purpose of a reserve. Building refuges for fish is impractical. As for automated scarecrows, see minimising disturbance above. Just imagine how much of a racket you would have to generate in this tranquil setting to have an effect with noise generators. Shooting with blank cartridges would make the area sound like a war zone (never mind the cost at £6 for 25 cartridges)!
Surely something can be done? The Scottish Executive was concise in their response to recent pleas for action, the trout are not protected by any regulations or Directives, the birds are protected - tough on the fish.
Significant sums of money were spent, at government expense, on removing hedgehogs from Bennecula and Uist where a bounty of £4,000 per hedgehog captured was paid. Hedgehog hunting became quite a cottage industry where the total budget for removal was £186,475.
A similar scheme of live capture of cormorants might have significant benefits to the loch and the entrepreneurial skills Kinross community, if fish only had feathers. I doubt the Executive will act in time for there is little doubt that the bird watchers have more clout than anglers.
Angling is looking for an accommodation on Loch Leven not the eradication of cormorants. Sitting on their hands allows the Scottish Executive to keep themselves clean in the build up to an election year. If they sit on there hands long enough the problem might even be solved when the fishery closes once and for all, ending a centuries old tradition on this beautiful natural fishery.
Such an outcome can only fuel animosity between angling and conservation interest inflamed by such ongoing issues as the Scottish National Heritage concern for lampreys and fresh water mussels to the detriment of fishery improvements on the Spey. While millions is spent to protect bird life, relatively little is spent to protect sports angling interests (worth well in excess of £110 million to the Scottish economy) when there is a clash of interests with other conservation bodies. One might even wonder if the long term objective is to eliminate angling from this and other natural fisheries by attrition.
Joint action is required to protect this important fishery and the dwindling stock of wild brown trout. Anything short of a fair accommodation will reek of institutional bias against angling interests. The hedgehogs removed at great expense from the Benbecula and Uist were not native to the Isles anymore than sea gulls are native the the corporation rubbish tip. Cormorants of the Phalacrocorax carbo species are not native to our inland waters and should be removed.
Lets get something done now. If hedgehogs are worth £186,000 trout must be worth a damned site more! Why not contact George Reid, MSP, Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, his constituency borders on the loch.
Write to: Alloa Business Centre, Whins Road, Alloa, FK10 3SA. Call: 01259 726655 or Fax 01259 725918 or log on to: www.scottish.parliament.uk to Email.
As Presiding Officer I am sure Mr Reid is a busy chap and just needs a reminder that help is needed before angling on Loch Leven goes out with a whimper.
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