“It is very troubling that the Federal Government would begin killing birds knowing that the courts are likely to rule on the legality of the program within a matter of days or weeks,” said Stephen Wells, Executive Director of Animal Legal Defense Fund. “It demonstrates the degree to which the government remains fixated on scapegoating the birds regardless of any other factors. Federal agencies ignored their own science as well as overwhelming public opposition to this mass killing, so sadly it comes as no surprise that they would also ignore the legal process.”
The killing also comes just a week after the federal government suffered a monumental loss in litigation over its cormorant killing program in the eastern United States. A federal district court in Washington, D.C. struck down the analyses used by the federal government to justify killing tens of thousands of cormorants annually east of the Mississippi. Notably, the court found that the government failed to consider alternatives other than its preferred lethal control strategy and that the government failed to demonstrate that killing cormorants provided any appreciable benefit to the fish that the killing was meant to protect. These are the same issues that plaintiffs have raised in litigation opposing the lethal control program at East Sand Island. Further, the federal agencies killing cormorants in the Columbia Estuary point to the same management plan rejected by the D.C. court as the foundational plan underpinning the mass killing at East Sand Island.
“We have documented problems here in the Northwest very similar to those cited by the court in halting cormorant killings in the eastern U.S.,” said Bob Sallinger, Conservation Director for Bird Alliance of Oregon. “Yet the government is going ahead with plans to shoot thousands of birds in the Columbia Estuary without waiting for a decision on whether its conduct is lawful. The government is already guilty of senseless, illegal slaughter of tens of thousands of cormorants in the east; moving forward with killing cormorants in the west under these circumstances is unconscionable.”
Under their current permits, the Corps will be allowed to kill 3,114 Double-crested Cormorants, 93 Brant’s Cormorants and 9 Pelagic Cormorants and destroy 5,247 Double-crested Cormorant nests at East Sand Island during 2016. During 2015, the Corps killed over 1,700 birds and destroyed more than 5,000 nests. The Corps ultimate goal is to kill upwards of 15% of the entire population of Double-crested Cormorants west of the Rocky Mountains. However, in arguments filed with a federal district court in Portland, groups challenging the cormorant killing program pointed to agency documents concluding that drastically reducing the East Sand Island cormorant colony may produce little or no progress toward increasing runs of threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead in the Columbia Basin.
Bird Alliance of Oregon, Friends of Animals, Center for Biological Diversity, Wildlife Center of the North Coast and Animal Legal Defense Fund sued the US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Army Corps and USDA Wildlife Services in 2015 to stop the slaughter at East Sand Island. They are represented by Earthrise Law Center. The litigation is pending.
Media Contacts
- Bob Sallinger, Bird Alliance of Oregon, (503) 380-9728, bsallinger@birdallianceoregon.org
- Dan Rohlf, Earthrise Law Center, (503) 484-3943, rohlf@lclark.edu
- Natalia Lima, Animal Legal Defense Fund, 679-7088795-2533, x 1010, nlima@aldf.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.
