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 ______________________________________________________________________ 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]