US Army Corp of Engineers Begins Slaughter of 10,000 Cormorant

May 31st, 2015

David Schulberg

In what can be described as an asinine approach to helping the salmon populations of the Columbia River and west coast, the Army Corp of Engineers has begun the planned slaughter of 10,000 adults and eggs of cormorants living on East Sand Island, located in the Columbia River between Washington and Oregon states.

There is a problem, yes. The salmon need help and some species are protected as endangered. At the root of this problem is not enough juvenile salmon are leaving the nearby rivers this time of year to support the fishing industry when they return to the rivers to spawn.

The problem is not the cormorant.

The problem is the damming of the rivers and subsequent diversion of water that leads to impossible low water and or warm water conditions in the rivers preventing the salmon from breeding in the numbers required by the industry that survives on the lives of salmon. The dams themselves, despite attempts to build fish passage ways have also directly cut off salmon from the spawning grounds they have used since inception.

But water is a commodity, so instead of addressing this issue by releasing more water from the dams into the rivers so that the salmon can reach their spawning grounds, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services has decided it would be better to have the Army Corp of Engineers patrol with silenced rifles and put oil on the cormorants egg filled nests so that they can just kill 10,000 cormorants who also survive on the juvenile salmon returning to the ocean. Reducing the current cormorant colony from about 14,000 breeding pairs to 5,600 pairs by 2018.

Neither species or the fishing industry who pushed for it are helped by this plan. It is only a temporary fix to keep an already dying fishing industry afloat for a few more years.

The cormorant, the salmon and the fisherman, who’s lives have always been interdependent on one another will all continue to suffer.

The cormorant cull needs to end and a rational plan that actually helps the salmon introduced.

As of May 28th.
Individual adults culled: 109
Nests oiled: 1,769