I've been editing some historical pieces on the birds of Grand Lake St Marys for the next Ohio Cardinal issue. One of them is by the eminent naturalist Charles Dury, who studied the Lake in the 1860s. Dury's paper, which we'll be reprinting in its entirety, is often cited as central to the history of double-crested cormorants in Ohio, but not many have read it. Clark & Sipe's citation in "Birds of the Lake St. Marys Area" is erroneous, and the journal in which it was actually published is hard to find. Interesting in many ways, the paper is particularly so in its treatment of cormorants. Dury mentions "seemingly endless swarms" of them, "great numbers," saying that the largest rookery (indicating there was more than one) was called "Cranetown," where "quantities were shot for their feathers." He calls the numbers of fishes they consumed "enormous." Elsewhere he says of this rookery "[h]ere I used to go to shoot them, with the natives who wanted them for their feathers. I have helped kill a boat load." Frank Langdon ("Observations on Cincinnati Birds", 1878) wrote that Dury had told him the cormorants had "rapidly decreased in numbers" over the previous eleven years. Dawson ("The Birds of Ohio", 1903) explained this by describing these birds as "fiercely persecuted by fishermen and thoughtlessly shot by every would-be sportsman who can hit a flying barn." Dawson states he had seen only one living cormorant in Ohio, so this must be hearsay, though it has the ring of truth. Another article we reproduce, from W.F. Henninger describing a birding trip to GLSM in 1904, describes the devastation of the wildlife habitat at the lake, and it is easy to imagine that people who fished for a living might have blamed cormorants for the failure of their livelihood, just when the cormorants themselves suffered from the loss of the fishery through environmental degradation. Without Dury's testimony we likely would have no knowledge of this impressive colony. If there were others, they had no chroniclers. Little careful evidence of bird populations remains from mid-19th century Ohio. The very curious J.P. Kirtland had many correspondents and readers, but his knowledge of Ohio birds in the 1850s had many gaping holes. Grand Lake St Marys is an artificial reservoir, completed only the decade before Dury's visits. What must have been the status of cormorants in the region if a large nesting colony established itself over such a short time? And what effect might the then-prevalent delusion that wildlife was inexhaustible (there are several poignant examples in Dury's piece) have had on what observers bothered to record for posterity? As it happens, cormorant biologists Linda Wires and Francesca Cuthbert have taken a look at questions like these, and concluded that cormorants, despite what we hear from certain sources, are probably far less numerous in the Great Lakes than they once were. In historical perspective, there probably is no recent "explosion" or "invasion" of these birds. Their 2006 article, "Historic populations of the Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus): Implications for conservation and management in the 21st century" from Waterbirds 29(1):9-37 is available on the Web at: http://www.bioone.org/perlserv/?request=get-toc&issn=1524-4695&volume=29&issue=1 This is quite readable stuff from scientists who know their cormorants. Here are two sentences for a start: "For this species, and others that are seen as competitors with humans, limits of human tolerance (i.e. “social carrying capacity”) are far narrower than those of biological carrying capacity. Because large numbers have been typical for cormorants historically, population targets based on fishery or other objectives derived from human values will likely be readily surpassed, require intensive management, and significantly depart from the concept of conserving birds in natural numbers and natural habitats." If you feel that killing large numbers of native birds is a very serious undertaking--especially if done in the name of science and conservation by government agents devoted to wildlife--and deserves the most careful consideration (and reconsideration), the perspective this study provides will be of help. Bill Whan Columbus ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]