The Today Programme, Radio 4, 21st January 2005, 7:45am
Presented in the studio by Sarah Montague and Tom Feilden outside.
THE TRANSCRIPT
Sarah Montague: The RSPB says that cormorant populations are now under threat because the Government has made it easier for people to get a licence to shoot the birds. The licences are given to anglers who want to protect fishing sites. Terry Mansbridge is Chairman of the Moran Committee which represents thirteen major fisheries and angling organisations in England and Wales.
Terry Mansbridge (Chairman, Moran Committee): We do support the licensed shooting of cormorants but we’ve never asked, neither do we wish for a cull, of the birds. In addition to the obvious threat of killing the fish which they do with generally the smaller sized fish, cormorants will also damage the larger size fish that they can’t actually consume. And then when the weather warms up the bacteria get in and the fish often die. Also cormorants do affect the behaviour pattern of the fish and cause them to sort of seek refuge under bridges and under trees and to perform unnaturally. We recommend a number of measures including the use of gas guns and bird scarers and shooting to scare. But eventually these don’t work for one reason or another, or they’re not applicable to the type of fishery. So therefore you have to resort to shooting the birds as a last resort. All this really is about, as far as angling is concerned, is levelling the playing fields and giving up the ability to protect fish.
SM: Well Tom Feilden is by a gravel pit near Huntingdon. Tom, good morning.
Tom Feilden: Yes, good morning from Paxton. It’s a nature reserve on the banks of the great Ouse in Cambridgeshire and this place’s claim to fame I suppose you could say is it’s one of the first inland sites that cormorants re-colonised back in the 1980s. No sign yet of the black Luftwaffe, or Stuka bird, as fishermen tend to call it, silhouetted against the breaking dawn. That nickname that fishermen have given is really a reference to its sort of singular and sinister angularity of its wingspan. It really does look something like a pterodactyl. But the cormorant certainly is a voracious eater of fish and in September the Government has introduced a new system to licence its control. Now that upset the RSPB and with me is their Head of Species Conservation, Julian Hughes. Julian, what’s wrong with this new system?
Julian Hughes (Head of Species Conservation, RSPB): We’ve got two real concerns about it and our quibble is really with the Government about the way they’re operating the system rather than with the anglers who, who are using it. One point is the fact that the Government really has no idea what impact this cull will have on the conservation status of the cormorant. There’s only about two and a half thousand pairs of them nest in England so if they’re prepared to issue licences for up to three thousand birds to be killed every winter we really don’t know what impact that’s going to have on those numbers.
TF: Yes, ’cause they’ve issued one thousand five hundred licences already. That doesn’t necessarily mean that one thousand five hundred birds have been shot though does it?
JH: No it does, not it doesn’t mean that fifteen hundred birds have been shot, but, but, but there might have been and the Government won’t know that until we get, until we get to the end of the winter and all the licence returns are in. And they could, they could be prepared to issue up to three thousand.
TF: But do you accept that there needs to be control of cormorant numbers?
JH: We do accept that there needs, there needs to be a licensing system so that there is some kind of regulation on control. Yes we, we completely understand that. There are places, there are fisheries where fishery managers and anglers will have problems with cormorants because fish is what they eat; they can’t eat anything else. But there are lots of ways in which you can manage the cormorants so that, so that you don’t have to kill them, either by changing the stocking regime or, or putting refuges under the water. TF: Julian Hughes thank you very much.
