Romandy: Hobby hunters hunt cormorants

The authorities have heeded the complaints of the fishermen. Since the beginning of the month, game wardens on Lake Neuchâtel have been shooting cormorants on the orders of the cantons as part of a special hunt. In 2020, the fish-eating bird is set to be officially included in the hunting plan for the lake. In addition, from next year professional fishermen will be permitted to shoot at cormorants found within a 100-metre radius of their nets.

The waterbird is not protected in Switzerland and may be hunted outside the breeding season. Until now, however, the agreement has been that the fish-eater would only be hunted on rivers and smaller bodies of water, but not on the large lakes.

The Intercantonal Fisheries Commission for Lake Neuchâtel decided at its meeting at the end of June to abandon this practice. The corresponding concordat is being revised.

The cantons have not set any shooting quotas. At present, one to two game wardens per canton go out twice a week to shoot cormorants. How many animals have been killed so far, the authorities cannot say. A first assessment will be made on 10 October, it is said.

Cormorant made a scapegoat

The measures are controversial. Conservationists do not believe that the black-feathered bird is devouring the livelihoods of the fishermen. There is no scientific evidence that the bird has a significant impact on fish stocks in the lake, they say. However, they do not intend to mount opposition to the culling. The cormorant is a huntable species, not an endangered one.

«Opening a hunt for the cormorant may be legally compliant, but in our view it makes no sense», says Werner Müller, Executive Director of the nature conservation organization Birdlife Switzerland, when asked. Fishing yields follow long-term cycles influenced by many factors, with the number of cormorants likely being the least significant.

A look at the federal fisheries statistics supports this claim. Since a low in 2004, the catch of whitefish in Lake Neuchâtel rose continuously until 2010. Since then, yields have fallen back to 2004 levels by 2017. The number of cormorants in the region, however, has steadily increased since the first count in 2001.

Another problem is the data basis. «We don't know how many fish are in the lake — only how many are taken out», says Müller. There are also biologists who doubt that the cormorant consumes 500 grams of fish per day. In their view, the daily food intake is closer to 150 to 350 grams.

Unexplored Causes

The measures now adopted are primarily aimed at reducing the impact of cormorants on commercial fishing, independent of the question of their influence on fish populations, says Christophe Noël, wildlife inspector for the canton of Neuchâtel, when asked. Cormorants cause damage to nets and to the fish caught in them.

In a 2011 Federal Court ruling, damages per fisherman were calculated at an average of around 2’000 francs per year and a maximum of 2.5 percent of average gross annual income, as Noël noted. Since then, the cormorant population has nearly quadrupled. «That is why we consider the regulatory measures to be entirely justified.»

No License for Birth Control

Politicians of various persuasions feel these measures do not go far enough. The Federal Council recently had to respond to no fewer than three parliamentary interpellations on the subject of cormorants. For example, Valérie Piller Carrard, a Social Democratic National Councillor from Fribourg, called for cormorant eggs to be destroyed in breeding areas in order to effectively regulate the bird's population.

Bird protection advocates, on the other hand, are firmly convinced that interventions at breeding sites must continue to be avoided in the future. They point to a ruling by the Federal Administrative Court, which decided in their favor in 2011.

At the time, the judges prohibited the regulatory measures at the internationally significant waterbird reserve of Fanel on Lake Neuchâtel, which had previously been approved by the Federal Office for the Environment. Should there be any plans to overturn this ruling, BirdLife will fight back with full force, says Executive Director Müller.

No waste in the lake

For now, the conservationists also have the Federal Council on their side. "As long as the cantons do not adequately document either the extent and relevance of the damage caused by cormorants to commercial fishing or the measures taken to prevent such damage, the federal government sees no need to develop an enforcement guide", the federal government responded to Carrard's motion at the beginning of September.

Rather, fishermen should refrain from disposing of fish offal back into the lake after gutting their catch, as a means of preventing damage caused by cormorants. In the Romandy region, this is common practice. In the Federal Council's view, this food source artificially inflates bird populations.

Many cormorants breed at Lake Neuchâtel

In 2001, the waterbirds were observed breeding in Switzerland for the first time since the Middle Ages. According to the Swiss Ornithological Institute in Sempach, there were around 2’400 breeding pairs nationwide in 2018.

More than half of these breed at Lake Neuchâtel. In addition, thousands of winter visitors and migrants pass through. The fish-eating bird was rigorously persecuted by humans for centuries. In the inland regions of Central Europe, the species was at times nearly wiped out. Since the breeding colonies in northern Europe have been protected, the population in Switzerland has also increased significantly once again.

Fishermen are unhappy with this development

This is to the dismay of many fishermen, who regard the black-feathered, goose-sized bird with its powerful, hook-shaped bill as a competitor for food and hold it responsible for the decline in fish populations . The cormorant is also a source of frustration because it damages the nets of commercial fishermen when it steals fish from them.

Revised action plan

The federal government, cantons, and fishing and nature conservation organisations drew up an action plan in 1995, which was revised in 2005. It is based on the principle of deterring cormorants from rivers to protect grayling, while refraining from intervention at lakes.

As an unprotected species, the cormorant can be hunted in Switzerland outside of the closed season. According to federal hunting statistics, an average of 1’485 cormorants were shot per year between 2010 and 2017 (including special culls).

The waterbird has few natural enemies, such as martens, foxes, goshawks, eagle owls, and gulls, which eat their eggs. The name cormorant most likely derives from the Old French «corp mareng», meaning something like sea raven.