Double-breasted Cormorants Management at High Bluff Island
Introduction
Double-breasted cormorants are some of the primary inhabitants of inland waters and seacoasts. They are mostly seen during the daytime, swimming in shallow waters, with only their sinuous necks showing above (Mattingley, 1931). However, they may also be seen resting on pilings or rocks around the shorelines of inland water bodies or seas. Double-breasted cormorants are the most prevalent cormorants in North America. In the United States and Canada, double-breasted cormorants are the only cormorants that appear in large numbers on the coastal areas and in the interiors. This large number of double-breasted cormorants has led to vicious debates on how to control them and bring about ecological balance. This report aims to analyze the social, ecological, and management issues about the ongoing management of a huge population of double-breasted cormorants on High Bluff Island in Presqu’ile Provincial Park on the shore of Lake Ontario. This colony has had a devastating impact on vegetation, and so efforts have been mounted to decrease the size of the population.
Cormorant Population, Ecology, and Impacts
The management of double-breasted cormorants is a daunting task. This is so because of the considerations that have to be made in whatever efforts that may be devised to control them ( Keith, 1995). On one side, there are concerns on the perfect way of dealing with them, while on the other, there is the obligation to maintain ecological integrity in any actions on the double-breasted cormorants. The High Bluff Island in Presqu’ile Provincial Park on the shore of Lake Ontario has continuously faced the challenge of dealing with these creatures. All efforts to contain them has been dealt with equal criticism by conservationists in Canada. The main problem with double-breasted cormorants is that they opportunistically feed on readily available fishes. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
In the High Bluff Island in Presqu’ile Provincial Park on the shore of Lake Ontario, double-breasted cormorants have impacted vegetation and fisheries in the surrounding area. The forested ecosystem in High Bluff Island has borne the brunt of the continuously increasing population of double-breasted cormorants in the area. A lot of vegetation has been damaged as a result of the nesting activities of these creatures, necessitating the need to come up with strategies to arrest the problem. The main concern on these double-breasted cormorants with respect to their impacts ln the forested island ecosystem has been their impacts on co-nested species and, in general, the vegetation cover (Keith, 1995). However, the biological and economic implications of double-breasted cormorants are complex and typically difficult to establish unambiguously.
The increasing abundance of double-breasted cormorants has led to the development of several policies on the potential ways of managing them. One of these policies in Canada is Ontario’s Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act, 2006. This act is based on the perceived and real resource conflicts involving the double-breasted cormorants. Ontario’s Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act, 2006, proposed and documented some mechanisms that can be applied in dealing with the abundant number of cormorants in the High Bluff Island. These legislative changes allowed for a more pronounced program on cormorants management, including culling and egg oiling by the authorities in Ontario. It also allowed the carrying out of management procedures in the breeding areas of the double-breasted cormorants to stem out the ecological fallout of their abundance on the island.
The increase in cormorant number and the legislation of management policies has led to a lot of research studying cormorants biology, effective management mechanisms, and impacts of double-breasted cormorants on resources. Several symposia have been conducted in Ontario to address the species’ history and biology. Specifically, the focus on interspecific interactions and habitat use of these cormorants has led to remarkable steps towards realizing a balance in the ecosystem in the areas where they are found. Their population demographics and their migration and movement have also been documented. All these aspects are vital in developing a sustainable program to manage double-breasted cormorants in the High Bluff Island while enhancing ecological integrity in the area.
Despite the devastating impacts of double-breasted cormorants in the High Bluff Island in Presqu’ile Provincial Park on the shore of Lake Ontario, there is a need to ensure that all management mechanisms are designed to enable them to fit in the ecosystem. This has been a controversial topic as there is no proved hypothesis on the detrimental effects of double-breasted cormorants on aquaculture and human fisheries. Also, continually fluctuating numbers of the cormorants has ked to a debate on whether to focus on their migratory and breeding trends, and not their presence in the High Bluff Island. To handle this, there have been significant investments in the counting technology of the double-breasted cormorants to ensure that their numbers are neither overstated or understated. Some of these techniques include the one hour – one-kilometer Ebird traveling count. Nevertheless, double-breasted cormorants continue to pose ecological threats to other species in High Bluff Island and the vegetation in the surrounding area.
Cormorant Management
Double-breasted cormorants constitute a significant source of fisheries conflicts and ecological imbalance in inland waters and some sea coasts. In the past 30-40 years, the number of double-breasted cormorants around High Bluff Island in Presqu’ile Provincial Park on the shore of Lake Ontario has increased. This has necessitated the application of different management measures to minimize their adverse impacts on the immediate ecosystem. Double-breasted cormorants often inhabit and feed in areas that are valuable to commercial fishers, recreational anglers, and fish farmers (Acord, 1995). This situation is different in different countries, but it usually results in conflicts between the double-breasted cormorants and other components of the ecosystem. Therefore, the application of cormorant management techniques can help minimize these conflicts and also minimize the likely damage to the ecosystem.
The management of the number of cormorants in the Presqu’ile Provincial Park has been a thorny issue, as different parties have proposed various measures to control the number of double-breasted cormorants. According to an assessment done between 2003 and 2006, non-lethal methods were successful in reducing the number of cormorants nests at the park from 12, 082 to 3, 855 nests (Cormorant, O. P. I. D. C., & Management Scientific Review Committee, 2006). Some of the non-lethal methods included nest removal, egg oiling, and culling. These methods worked well, and the number of nests in High Bluff Island was reduced significantly by 69% in a span of about five years. Ground nests, on the other hand, were reduced by a massive 83%, showing the effectiveness of non-lethal methods in the management of double-breasted cormorants on the Presqu’ile Provincial Park (Cormorant, O. P. I. D. C., & Management Scientific Review Committee, 2006). In the pre-management era, the rate of increase in the number of double-breasted cormorants was so high that there were predictions of a total ecosystem failure at High Bluff Island.
Several anglers and hunters’ associations in Ontario have, on several occasions, called for more measures to curb the number of double-breasted cormorants at the Presqu’ile Provincial Park. Studies have shown that continued management of double-breasted cormorants at the park, and in general, the High Bluff Island will help significantly in the restoration and protection of woody habitats. It will also help in retaining of maximum diversity of other bird species at the Presqu’ile Provincial Park. However, despite the prior assessment by the Ontario government showing the need for continuous management of double-breasted cormorants, there was no single cormorant management exercise carried out between 2008 and 2010.
The maintenance of ecological integrity is a core principle in the management of the ecosystem(Taylor, 2011). This means that ecological integrity is and should be a principal objective of the Ontario Parks, as per the provisions of the Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act, 2006. Definitively, ecological integrity is “ a condition in which biotic and abiotic components of ecosystems and the composition and abundance of native species and biological communities are characteristic of their natural regions, and rates of change and ecosystem processes are unimpeded” (Carignan and Villard, 2002). While many programs have been initiated to control the number of double-breasted cormorants has continued to increase. This trend is unsustainable and will obviously cause severe ramifications with respect to ecological integrity and the ability of other species to coexist naturally with the double-breasted cormorants (McCullough, Farquhar, and Mazzocchi, 2007). There is a real risk of losing other species if more robust management techniques are not adapted to reduce the number of double-breasted cormorants and their breeding.
Governance issues related to cormorants management at Presqu’ile Provincial Park
Over the past years, several measures have been proposed to significantly reduce the number of double-breasted cormorants at the Presqu’ile Provincial Park. Many times, the rollout of management techniques for these cormorants has been associated with criticisms from different quarters. In the initial stages, non-lethal measures were preferred, and this drew plaudits from some environmentalists. However, various associations and social groupings in Ontario were opposed to these measures as they argued that they were unlikely to achieve much in reducing the number of double-breasted cormorants at the High Bluff Island and the Presqu’ile Provincial Park. A good example is the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, which accused the Ontario Parks of initiating ineffective measures for the management of double-breasted cormorants at the expense of other species and the interests of fishers and the local community. They proposed the implementation of radical measures to bring down the number of double-breasted cormorants down.
Public participation in the implementation of management techniques has also been an issue of interest in recent years. Since 2002, the Ontario government has allowed the culling of double-breasted cormorants at Presqu’ile Provincial Park, though at different degrees at times due to legislations. This practice has not drawn total support from Ontarians and other concerned parties in Canada. For instance, the Cormorants Defenders International (CDI) has been vocal in calling for the Ontario government to immediately stop the practice of culling double-breasted cormorants at the Presqu’ile Provincial Park. In other countries such as the United States, it is prohibited to kill cormorants, according to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. However, with the authorization of the FWS, permits can be provided to private organizations, state agencies, and individuals, allowing them to use lethal mechanisms to deal with cormorants. Therefore, different countries have different strategies and legislation towards dealing with cormorants species, and hence the Ontario government should initiate sound management measures going forward to enhance ecological integrity.
. Disagreements have always marked the implementation of various management techniques by the Ontario government. Different groupings have previously carried out peaceful protests in Ontario in response to legislation or actions of the Ontario government encouraging lethal management of double-breasted cormorants. In 2011, after intense pressure from environmentalists and other associations, including the CDI, the Ontario government temporarily halted the use of lethal methods in the management of double-crested cormorants at the Presqu’ile Provincial Park. The ecological impacts of this decision were dire. As of 2015, the number of nests had increased from 3,854 to 5,425, representing a 41% increase (McDonald et al., 2018). The number of colonial bids and other species subsequently dipped significantly in this period, showing the negative impact of a high number of double-breasted cormorants in the park. This led to a petition by the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters to the Ontario government, seeking a review of the cormorant management policies. A key argument was that an increased number of cormorants was at the expense of other species, which was a huge threat to ecological integrity in the High Bluff Islands. Ordinarily, practical and sound management of cormorants should have the objective of striking a balance between the numbers of different species, while at the same time encouraging the continuous assessment and adjustment of specific management techniques.
Adaptive management
The management of cormorants always draws criticisms. One concept which can be incorporated in the management of cormorants, to minimize the disagreements on measures taken is adaptive management. Definitively, adaptive management, according to USDA, is a systematic process for continually improving management policies and practices by learning from the outcomes of operational programs ( USDA, 1993). Adaptive management of ecosystems is composed of four cyclical components. These include learning, describing, predicting, and doing. The learning component involves the evaluation and monitoring of an ecosystem problem, for instance, a high number of double-breasted cormorants in a park. The describing element of adaptive management entails modeling of individual situations to represent and summarize systems. The predicting component, on the other hand, tests proposed actions and policies, to have a clear understanding of possible outcomes in the last step. Finally, the doing component of adaptive management is accomplished through management experiments. For an adaptive management process to be successful, it must have concise objectives, be based on accurate data, involve the right participants, be science-based, and have the necessary resources for modeling and experimentation.
Adaptive management must embrace uncertainty and have a clear understanding of the implications of incomplete measures. Arguably, adaptive management a technique that can be applied to improve the efficacy of management techniques in cormorants control. This is because it supports resource allocation and decisions that provide a framework for actions that are directed towards changing the ecosystem. The most exciting fact about adaptive management is that it allows environmentalists and conservationists to learn from specific management techniques and the resulting outcomes, which is vital in the design of more effective management techniques in the future (Woodley, 20111). Generally, adaptive management encourages conservation and the maintenance of ecological integrity, while discouraging excuses and blame games for inaction. Understanding and embracing adaptive management is key to the realization of the sound management of double-breasted cormorants in High Bluff Island.
While there have been some successes in the management of double-breasted cormorants at the Presqu’ile Provincial Park, a lot of shortcomings have been identified in some of the management techniques applied. For instance, the application of non-lethal measures between 2011 to 2015 caused significant damage to the ecosystem. The number of double-breasted cormorants increased, at the expense of other species. Studies show that the number of fish in lake Ontario reduced by over 20% in that period. In addition, a lot of vegetation was destroyed, and the number of colonial birds decreased significantly. All these events compromised ecological integrity and were pointers of an ineffective management strategy on the part of Ontario Parks. If adaptive management was applied, various gaps could have been seen and corrected accordingly, and this could have made it possible to develop a data and model-based outcome-oriented management plan for the Presqu’ile Provincial Park. The Ontario government should consider adopting adaptive management as in the carrying out of the ongoing double-breasted cormorant control at the Presqu’ile Provincial Park, High Bluff Island.
Conclusion
The ongoing management of double-breasted cormorants at the Presqu’ile Provincial Park should aim at restoring ecological integrity at the park. Evidently, the management techniques applied in the past have not helped significantly in keeping a balance between the various species that exhibit the Presqu’ile Provincial Park, and in general, the High Bluff Island. Some of the non-lethal measures that have been initiated to keep the number of these double-breasted cormorants have clearly not worked, and the result has been the deterioration of the ecosystem at High Bluff Island. The number of colonial bird, fish, among other species has declined continuously, and the ramifications may be dire in the near future. These species are at a real risk of extinction, which would be a big blow to the Ontario ecosystem. Therefore, more radical measures, based on adaptive management, should be put in place to reduce the number and breeding rate of double-breasted cormorants at Presqu’ile Provincial Park. Data should be collected on the exact number of double-breasted cormorants, modeling done, and management actions proposed, based on the outcomes of the experimentation models. This will help create an environment where the double-breasted cormorants and other species can coexist without the risk of damaging effects on the ecosystem. Fish farmers and commercial fishers will also benefit significantly if sound cormorant management techniques are employed at the Presqu’ile Provincial Park. In addition to these, there should be a robust program to incorporate the views of Ontarians so that the management techniques applied to capture the proposals and interests of all parties concerned.
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