Cormorants will be shot out of the sky with shotguns over water as they forage for food and with rifles at close range as they tend to their nests on East Sand Island. The Corps intends to kill 15 percent of the entire population of double-crested cormorants west of the Rocky Mountains. By the Corps’ own admission, the slaughter will drive western populations below a level that it has defined as sustainable. The Corps still must obtain permits from the US Fish and Wildlife Service to commence the killing. The Bird Alliance of Oregon urges the Fish and Wildlife Service to deny those permits. However, if those permits are issued, the Bird Alliance of Oregon’s Board of Directors has voted to sue the Corps and the US Fish and Wildlife Service to stop this unprecedented slaughter.
“We are deeply disappointed that despite more than 145,000 comments opposing this decision, the federal government has chosen to move forward with the wanton slaughter of thousands of protected birds,” said Bird Alliance of Oregon conservation director Bob Sallinger. “Rather than addressing the primary cause of salmon decline, the manner in which the Corps operates the Columbia River Hydropower System, the Corps has instead decided to scapegoat wild birds and pursue a slaughter of historic proportions. Sadly this will do little or nothing to protect wild salmon but it will put double-crested cormorant populations in real jeopardy.”
Although the Corps asked the public for comments on the Final Environmental Impact Statement, it issued its final record of decision approving the killing of cormorants only five days after the comment period closed. This continues a pattern with the Corps of ignoring the public, ignoring the science and obfuscating the real causes of salmon decline for which they bear primary responsibility.
“This has never been about birds versus fish,” said Sallinger. “This has always been about the Corps refusing to stand up and fix the problems that they created. Blaming wild birds that have coexisted with salmon since time immemorial is nothing more than a diversion.”
Bird Alliance of Oregon believes the Corps should focus on the primary causes of salmon declines – including management of the federal hydropower system, habitat loss and hatchery fish – rather than scapegoating wild birds. The US Army Corps of Engineers has been tied up in litigation for more than a decade due to its ongoing failure to address the impacts of dams on salmon. In addition, the science on which the Final Environmental Impact Statement is based is remarkably weak both in terms of documenting the impacts of cormorants on wild salmon and also in terms of predicting the benefits of the proposed lethal control on salmon recovery. Finally, the proposed lethal control could have significant impacts on western populations of double-crested cormorants. The proposed killing represents 15 percent of the double-crested cormorant population west of the Rocky Mountains. Double-crested cormorant populations in the west are an order of magnitude smaller than they were a century ago and the only place in the west where double-crested cormorant populations have seen significant increases in recent decades is on East Sand Island.
Bird Alliance of Oregon has been engaged with protecting birds on East Sand Island for more than a decade. The island is internationally recognized as an Important Bird Area and is home to the largest colony of Caspian terns in the world, the largest colony of double-crested cormorants in the western United States and the largest brown pelican post-breeding roost on the West Coast. Bird Alliance of Oregon is committed to the recovery of federally listed salmon, but supports science-based strategies that address the primary causes of decline, not the persecution of fish-eating birds for simply doing what comes naturally.
View the Bird Alliance of Oregon’s full comments on the final Environmental Impact Statement.
Media Contact
- Bob Sallinger, Conservation Director | 503-380-9728 | bsallinger@birdallianceoregon.org
Founded in 1902, Bird Alliance of Oregon is one of the oldest conservation organizations in the nation. It promotes the understanding, enjoyment and protection of native birds, other wildlife and their habitats through its conservation and environmental education programs, its 150-acre Nature Sanctuary and Nature Store in northwest Portland, and its Wildlife Care Center.
For more information, call 503-292-6855 or visit birdallianceoregon.org.
