Cormorants

kildare lad

Is anyone noticing an increasing amount of cormorants coming inland over the last 2 or 3 years. They've done so much damage on the local canal that it's not worth fishing anymore . The last two winters theres been 3 or 4 cormorants hammering the fish that are shoaled up every morning. I'm on wildlife pages on facebook and the amount of pictures of cormorants that people are posting shows that they're coming inland everywhere . I don't think lots of our small waterways can take the predation they cause .

wookiesleep

I often noticed them on different sections of the Royal Canal back in the days when I used to commute on the bike.

I know they have a terrible reputation among fisherman. I wonder whether fish stocks in the sea are having an effect and bringing them more inland. Either way I have a certain respect for their ability to survive in so many diverse environments.

kildare lad

wookiesleep wrote: »

I often noticed them on different sections of the Royal Canal back in the days when I used to commute on the bike.

I know they have a terrible reputation among fisherman. I wonder whether fish stocks in the sea are having an effect and bringing them more inland. Either way I have a certain respect for their ability to survive in so many diverse environments.

Ye I'd say lack of fish stocks are bringing them inland . I'm fishing local for 25 years and only seen them in the last 3 years. There's a quarry I used to fish and one day I seen two up there and I couldn't believe it , next week there was 6 , then they're out on the canal every morning . Bar a few small shoals of tiny roach , there's nothing left in the canal . I'm sure it's a lot easier to catch fish in crystal clear water that's only 3 feet deep that out at sea. The thing is it'll have a knock on effect with everything else that relies fish ie herons , grebes, kingfishers, otters . I recently seen pictures of 20 odd roosting on a tree beside the blackwater river . That can't be good for smolts trying to get back to sea.

twin_beacon

they do seem to be on the increase alright. I counted a flock of roughly 100 this Jan over the river suck when many of the lakes were frozen.

Jim_Hodge

Cormorants have always been common inland and nest in tress when away from the coast. Birdwatch Ireland has recorded considerable numbers inland for decades. I can't say I've seem any increase in their numbers around here but they are always on the local rivers and lakes.

david_1888

I've seen them more regularly both on the Grand Canal and the Dodder, right up as far as Ballsbridge (on the Dodder).

I was thinking the same myself i.e. would this deplete the small stock of trout that the Dodder has in that stretch and similar where I've seen them on the Canal.

The recent one I saw on the Canal was swallowing some sort of fish every time it surfaced. He was having a field day.

Bio Mech

They have been in an around kildare for at least a couple of decades. I was seeing them on the liffey and our club river in 2000. However the numbers do seem to be up the last few years and possibly they are spreading out to new waters now too. They can be very damaging to waters like the canals which are already suffering with poor management and poaching etc. Of all the issues with the canal I would have to say that poor management is the worst.

Waterways/iarnrod eireann have decimated the cover in my local stretch. Removed over hanging trees, reed beds, marginal lilly beds. Leaving all the fish without cover and without spawning habitat. I was up there this week (leixlip area) having not been up for a year or two and its really been hammered. All the overhanding trees cut, reed beds removed, looks like its been dredged, lilly roots lying exposed on the bottom. Really didint look good.

The cormorants are another nail in the coffin. Inland fishing is on a downward trajectory overall with pollution, predation, poaching, poor management and more people (the 5 Ps of doom). With human population and development on the up and with no real plan to improve things its a bleak outlook.

All you can do is look for the few isolated areas that remain.

Im not a doom mongering really BTW. Im a life long angler and qualified biologist/ecologist and im trying to remain rational. But the canal has many many issues. Out local river is doing well but thats down to a very committed club, with constant surveilance and pollution and ecological monitoring. The canal has none of that.

kildare lad

Bio Mech wrote: »

They have been in an around kildare for at least a couple of decades. I was seeing them on the liffey and our club river in 2000. However the numbers do seem to be up the last few years and possibly they are spreading out to new waters now too. They can be very damaging to waters like the canals which are already suffering with poor management and poaching etc. Of all the issues with the canal I would have to say that poor management is the worst.

Waterways/iarnrod eireann have decimated the cover in my local stretch. Removed over hanging trees, reed beds, marginal lilly beds. Leaving all the fish without cover and without spawning habitat. I was up there this week (leixlip area) having not been up for a year or two and its really been hammered. All the overhanding trees cut, reed beds removed, looks like its been dredged, lilly roots lying exposed on the bottom. Really didint look good.

The cormorants are another nail in the coffin. Inland fishing is on a downward trajectory overall with pollution, predation, poaching, poor management and more people (the 5 Ps of doom). With human population and development on the up and with no real plan to improve things its a bleak outlook.

All you can do is look for the few isolated areas that remain.

Im not a doom mongering really BTW. Im a life long angler and qualified biologist/ecologist and im trying to remain rational. But the canal has many many issues. Out local river is doing well but thats down to a very committed club, with constant surveilance and pollution and ecological monitoring. The canal has none of that.

Ye I seen that myself along by carton house. The government say one thing but do another . I rang waterways Ireland and complained last year about it .There's not to much poaching going in the stretch I'm on , as it's fairly busy with walkers and me and a few other anglers keeping an eye on it . The stretch was fishing great till cormorants showed up now its not worth going up to anymore its head wrecking seeing the productive stretch of water go to crap . The problem in winter time there's no weed and with all the fish shoaled up it's easy pickings for the birds.

There was fairly big shoal of fish, i'd say about 700 - 800 of nice size roach , rudd , hybrids and perch but they've been decimated. The neighbour walks there every morning and she's seen 7 cormorants up there sometimes. If they start moving on to more well known stretches in kildare , I may aswell take up golf lol

kildare lad

david_1888 wrote: »

I've seen them more regularly both on the Grand Canal and the Dodder, right up as far as Ballsbridge (on the Dodder).

I was thinking the same myself i.e. would this deplete the small stock of trout that the Dodder has in that stretch and similar where I've seen them on the Canal.

The recent one I saw on the Canal was swallowing some sort of fish every time it surfaced. He was having a field day.

At least they stock the dodder that'll take some pressure of the wild ones . If they stop stocking it you could be in trouble . If 2 cormorants eat say 1 trout a day over winter, which they're well capable of doing that's 180 trout in a few months .

kildare lad

twin_beacon wrote: »

they do seem to be on the increase alright. I counted a flock of roughly 100 this Jan over the river suck when many of the lakes were frozen.

100 cormorants would destroy a place in no time . I watched a video of mike brown fishing a gravel pit in England in winter time . He caught 2 pike that looked like they were on slim fast . He was said the cormorants had eaten so many of the roach there's was hardly any prey fish for the pike.

Bio Mech

kildare lad wrote: »

100 cormorants would destroy a place in no time . I watched a video of mike brown fishing a gravel pit in England in winter time . He caught 2 pike that looked like they were on slim fast . He was said the cormorants had eaten so many of the roach there's was hardly any prey fish for the pike.

We cut open some cormorants that met with, eh, unfortunate natural accidents. On average they had somewhere in the region of 14 fish in their stomachs. Mostly small smolt and roach. But also pike, trout and even an eel. In various stages of decomposition.

I expected one or two per bird.

kildare lad

Bio Mech wrote: »

We cut open some cormorants that met with, eh, unfortunate natural accidents. On average they had somewhere in the region of 14 fish in their stomachs. Mostly small smolt and roach. But also pike, trout and even an eel. In various stages of decomposition.

I expected one or two per bird.

I've seen pics of them cut open with stomach's full of smolts, a bloke I know fishes on a private lake and they shot one on it . He said the bird couldn't fly off as he'd eaten so much . They opened him up and he'd 2 tench inside him ... I think the birds are a fantastic predator but unfortunately now , are gonna be a death sentence to many smaller Irish waters .

flended12

Huge colony of them nesting in lough Derg. Paddled passed their site year before last and at a guess, 150 birds. The bleedin smell too.

Spotted one in ballymount/newlands graveyard only the other day.