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August 1, 1998, Saturday
Section:Metropolitan Desk
A Slaughter of Cormorants in Angler Country
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
The double-crested cormorant is a protected species, its safety guarded by Federal law. But on the Lake Ontario shoreline west of Watertown, N.Y., the long-necked black birds have become a pest to anglers, who say the growing colonies of cormorants are devouring smallmouth bass and, along with them, the livelihood of people who sell bait and run charter fishing trips. This week, wildlife officials visiting an island nesting ground in eastern Lake Ontario made the grim discovery of more than 800 cormorants slaughtered by shotgun fire. Although they have no suspects and have made no arrests, officials say they think the festering conflict between conservation and commerce is the motive in what they are calling one of the worst mass killings of a federally protected bird species in recent years.
New York State biologists said that when they went ashore on the uninhabited Little Galloo Island on Wednesday they encountered heaps of carcasses of fledgling cormorants, piles of shotgun shells and starving chicks squawking weakly amid the carnage. Clifford Schneider, who directs Lake Ontario projects for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, said, ''You see a young chick still lying there alive among all the others that had been wiped out, and you can't help but be moved emotionally.''The mass shooting appeared to be the latest of several recent instances in which a once-rare species has recovered so much that it has come into conflict with local interests. On July 23, Carrollton, Tex., bulldozed a rookery filled with nesting snowy egrets, little blue herons and other species protected by Federal law, after complaints of noise and odors.
The count of dead birds from that incident could be more than 1,000, said Pamela McCroskery, a spokeswoman for the Texas chapter of the National Audubon Society.
Around eastern Lake Ontario, fish-eating cormorants have staged a remarkable recovery since the 1950's, when they were nearly wiped out by pesticides and hunters.
In Henderson Harbor and other fishing spots near Little Galloo Island, owners of charter boats and other fishing-related businesses, joined by some officials, have been pressing the Government for several years to allow legalized hunting of cormorants, which they say are responsible for a drop in the populations of smallmouth bass and other popular game fish.
But with no action from the Government and the sport fishing industry in decline, there has been more and more talk along the shore lately of taking action against the birds, said Ron Ditch, a charter boat owner and guide for 43 years in Henderson Harbor.
''I've been pretty instrumental in trying to do this in a proper and legal manner,'' Mr. Ditch said yesterday. ''But everyone's been hearing rumblings forever about how people are going to go out and take care of the situation. Apparently someone finally wouldn't be talked out of it anymore.''
The controversy over the cormorants has centered on Henderson Harbor, a hamlet on a peninsula several miles from Little Galloo Island. The docks are a magnet for fishermen from across the country, some of whom spend $300 a day to charter boats and pursue smallmouth bass, salmon and other trophy fish.
The hamlet has nine marinas and more than 60 professional captains, and for many years, fishing has been about the only source of jobs or revenue, said Grover Moore, captain of the Charter II. ''When I was growing up, there were signs at both ends of the harbor that said, 'The Home of the Black Bass.' ''
But black bass, including smallmouths, have been hard to come by for several years, he said, and the fishermen say the birds are the only obvious culprit.
He said anglers had shot videotape of cormorants devouring freshly stocked brown trout to persuade state officials to press for a hunting season. ''You can see them eat so many that they couldn't fly off the water,'' Mr. Moore said. ''But nobody wants to listen to the fishermen.''
Growing threats against the birds first turned to action in April, when eight cormorants were killed, Federal wildlife officials said. In June, about 100 cormorants were killed. But this week's massacre, which left 840 birds dead and more than 100 others wounded, transformed the local issue into an extraordinary environmental crime.
Mitchell Snow, a spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington, said a quick survey of officials there turned up no recollections of mass killings of a protected species that compared with the cormorant slaughter, except perhaps for the incident in Texas. ''I've been with the department for almost 20 years and this is certainly the biggest in my memory,'' he said.
The long-necked diving birds have been protected for 25 years under the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which prohibits the killing of ducks, geese, egrets, cormorants and other migrating birds without a permit.
Cormorants have made a comeback in recent years, amd the island now contains the largest rookery for those birds in eastern Lake Ontario, with as many as 8,400 active nests. The 52-acre island is owned by the Phillips Petroleum Company but is only used as a bird preserve, state officials said.
Fishing guides and charter captains in the area have increasingly pressed members of Congress to write legislation authorizing controlled, legal hunting of the cormorants to reduce their numbers.
Representative John M. McHugh, a Republican who represents the lakeshore area in northern New York State, complained last fall that the Fish and Wildlife Service was taking too much time to assess the impact of the birds on local fish stocks.
The birds can be legally hunted in only a few places where they pose a clear economic threat, for example at catfish farms in Louisiana, Federal wildlife officials said. But research on their impact, if any, on the fish in Lake Ontario is still in the early stages, the officials said.
Federal biologists have estimated that cormorants eat 400,000 to 1.2 million smallmouth bass a year in the eastern part of the lake. But the significance of that number depends on the age of the bass, said James Farquhar, a biologist for the State Department of Environmental Conservation.
''If those are newborn bass, that's a drop in the bucket,'' Mr. Farquhar said. ''There are literally billions. But if those 1.2 million fish have already lived through several years, that is a significant number.''
Yesterday, officials were continuing their investigation. Conservation officers were interviewing anglers and others who might be able to pinpoint suspects around the fishing town of Henderson and other spots on Lake Ontario. Offers of money for information were being made, but no specific reward was posted.
John P. Cahill, State Commissioner of Environmental Conservation, said: ''We're making an all-out effort to find these people and prosecute them to the full extent of the law. This was an act of savage brutality.''
Killing a bird protected by the migratory bird law can result in a maximum penalty of a $5,000 fine and six months in prison for each count, said Adam O'Hara, the special agent in charge of law enforcement for the Fish and Wildlife Service in the Northeast.
Mr. O'Hara said that evidence collected on the island, including more than 100 shell casings and some bird carcasses, was being sent to state pathology laboratories and a Federal forensic laboratory for investigating wildlife crimes in Ashland, Ore.
David J. Miller, the executive director of the New York chapter of the Audubon Society, said the shooting recalled the turn of the 20th century, when waterfowl and gulls were shot by the millions for sport and to supply feathers to the hat industry.
''This is a dark act that takes us back to that time,'' he said. He called for a swift investigation, and aggressive prosecution of those responsible.
''The message has to be strong that people really can't take the law into their own hands,'' Mr. Miller said.
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