• A protected species, the great cormorant can be hunted to limit its impact on fish populations.

  • However, a decree has just prohibited the killing of great cormorants in open water areas.

  • Furious, the National Fishing Federation in France will attack the decree.

The

Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis

can claim victory.

Better known as the great terrestrial cormorant, the bird has just saved its feathers thanks to an order issued by the Ministry of Ecological Transition.

Dated September 19, the text drastically restricts the conditions for regulating the great cormorant.

Protected, the species could indeed be hunted in order to limit its damage to fish populations.

Every three years, the prefects of each department set quotas of cormorants that could be killed around fish farming areas and in open waters.

Between 2019 and 2022, nearly 151,000 cormorants were killed across the country.

But the new decree now limits regulation to fish farming areas, effectively prohibiting the slaughter of cormorants in rivers and ponds until 2025. A reversal which follows several victories obtained by the League for the Protection of Birds ( LPO) in court.

A lack of scientific evidence

In about fifteen departments, the association has indeed succeeded in having the previous decree annulled, for lack of sufficient scientific evidence on the impact of the great cormorant on fish populations.

"It is easy to blame cormorants for the decline in fish populations, but the reality is much more complex", underlines the LPO, listing as reasons "invasive species, climate change, poor water quality, pollution or eutrophication".

As with the jackdaw, nature protection associations also believe that there are less drastic solutions than culling cormorants to protect fish, such as nets or sound and visual deterrents.

“The great cormorant is a species naturally present in Brittany, integrated into the regional ecosystem, underlines Barbara Deyme, from Bretagne Vivante.

Its destruction, contrary to the desired objective, can generate other impacts on prey populations or various species, and thus unbalance the environment.

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The decree will be attacked by fishermen

On the side of the fishermen, on the other hand, the anger does not fall.

Because, in their eyes, the great cormorant is indeed "a predator" which wreaks havoc in ponds and rivers, swallowing quantities of fish.

"While numbers are on the rise, why does the ministry give predominant importance to the good condition of cormorants despite that of equally protected fish species such as salmon, eels, pike", wonders in a communicated the National Federation of Fishing in France (FNPF).

In firecracker, its administrators were quick to react by deciding "unanimously" to attack the decree of the Ministry of Ecological Transition.

“We do not understand this decision decorrelated from the reality on the ground”, fulminates Claude Roustan, president of the FNPF, who requested an interview with the President of the Republic.


In retaliation, the fishermen also approved the "sequestration" of the aquatic environment fee paid by the fishermen "for an approximate amount of eight million euros" and the payment of public fishing leases.

"Following these first large-scale decisions, the FNPF does not refrain from other strong actions in the future", she warns.

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