Trevor writes in the current Northampton Chronicle & Echo:
“Don’t just sit moaning about fish stock decimation by cormorants and other apex predators – start counting!
That’s the call from Northampton Specimen Group chairman Tony Gibson, who has begun ramping up the fight against over-predation.
He’s urging anglers to record, photograph if possible, and report every cormorant or otter attack they see to the national Predation Action Group.
That group is focussed on getting cormorants removed from the protected species list, and exposing the down-side of increasing otter numbers to public gaze…the latter an area where, to many on the banks, the Angling Trust can appear afraid to be seen to go.
He said:
“We need hard factual evidence, not rant, of the damage over-predation is causing.”
Ready to help? Report incidents at www.thepredationactiongroup.co.uk
Cormorants don’t just eat smaller fish.
Mike Green and buddy Ken Heath recently saw a ‘team’ of three harry a 30lb carp and drive it to the lake’s edge where they tore it apart before being driven off. His picture (above) shows it had no hope of survival.
He said:
“They worked as a team. It was a sad and depressing thing to witness, especially as we’d seen this fish grow from about 3lb to 30lb 4oz the last time it was caught.
Why is our lily-livered government procrastinating over returning these ghastly killers to the vermin list where they rightly belong?””
