Lake Talquin - cormorants

Stumbled across a YouTube video about a cormorant depredation project at Santee Cooper a few years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnqaBdZhdmA

I was on Talquin a couple of weeks ago and encountered the most cormorants I have ever seen in one area.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cKhGMQtveE

Nothing like Santee Cooper, but it got me to thinking about the future!

In the Santee video the data on how much damage a single cormorant can do to a fishery is astounding.

Just thought I would share this information for an awareness.

I haven't been on Talquin in about a year. It was really neat to see all the white pelicans that now reside on the lake.

Was there 2 weeks ago. Most I've ever seen. My 3 year old grandson was amazed. They don't have them in Alaska.

Cormorants are an "ugly" black bird, and your pelicans are large, graceful white birds. They both eat fish. Neither is too picky on the species they prey on. Depredation projects on cormorants and not on pelicans. Hmmmm?
Texas had a similar "problem" many years ago, before social media, and tried to legalize the killing of cormorants. That was the cattle people concerned about the fishing in the private ponds they used to water their cattle, and stocked for their own use. Now the commercial fishing ponds for farm raised catfish, salmon and other species has made an artificial habitat that is easy to harvest, but is also like shooting fish in a barrel (pun intended) for predators like cormorants. With plentiful food, easily available, predators have more young. (The reverse is true when the food supply dwindles. Think lemmings!) I'll bet the ospreys have increased in numbers, too. They just don't reproduce as quickly as cormorants, and, they are a graceful white bird.
Hopefully, the social pressure will not create a knee-jerk reaction to a situation, that will balance out when the industries affected find a way to limit their losses without hunting another species to the brink of extinction.

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