If you, like me, have visited Magee Marsh Wildlife Area recently to
admire migrant songbirds, you might, had you accidentally spun the focus
wheel the wrong way, have gotten a glimpse of West Sister Island in the
background.
It's about eight miles off shore, so your optics won't reveal the
camo-clad Division of Wildlife employees. Nor will you hear the
shooting, for their rifles are equipped with silencers. But they're out
there, killing thousands of native birds on their nests, then composting
the carcasses on-site.
West Sister Island is remote--that's why so many waterbirds nest
there--and conveniently so for those who think double-crested cormorants
must be removed from this and other islands, but don't want the public
to think about it too much.
Still farther out in Lake Erie and beyond sight, just over the
international border, the cormorant-culling team in Canada's Point Pelee
National Park--the other famed site for migratory songbirds in our
region--abruptly called a halt to their own project on Middle Island,
having killed only ~1600 of a planned 3000-4000.
This occurred last Thursday, just the day before Canadian news media
were to come witness the culling during the annual Festival of Birds and
a fund-raising dinner, all amid organized protests. The Park gave no
reason for curtailing the shooting, but apparently plans to resume next
year. As do the protesters.
There are no protests in the US, and little interest on the part of the
mainstream media (and perhaps among most readers of this list), so it
should be easier for us to refocus on those gorgeous warblers in the
foreground. If ODW starts charging to park at Magee (it's $7.80 at
Pelee), the income will help pay for cormorant culling and other
wildlife management efforts going on in the background.
Bill Whan
Columbus
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