Cormorants & Goosander
One of the biggest threats, if not the biggest, to our waters is predation by Cormorants and Goosanders.
Every year the Society invests time and money into improving our fish stocks. We also spend a lot of time and effort into trying to protect our waters from predation by these birds.
This page has been set up to provide our members with an insight to the problem and what can be done to try to reduce the impact that these birds are having on our fish stocks.
All members can help to tackle this problem , even if it is just a 10 minute walk around one our ponds, as people presence is one of the biggest deterrents to these birds, especially early in the morning.
Some facts and figures (from the Angling Trust)
Cormorant numbers have increase since protection was introduced in 1981 via the European Wild Birds Directive.
Traditionally in the 1960's and 70's, there were in the region of 2,000 birds in the country. The current number of over-wintering cormorants is estimated at 23,000!
Each individual bird eats at least 1lb of fish every day, which equates to a staggering 2,760,000lbs of fish lost each winter!!!!
In addition to these numbers, these birds can inflict serious injuries on fish too big for them to eat leaving them vulnerable to disease and death.
Nearly 70,000 sitings throughout the country have been recorded in the past year via the Angling Trust's Cormorantwatch web page.
This valuable information enables the Angling Trust to lobby government in an attempt to get more action to control the levels of these birds. Anyone can record sitings. If you wish to do so just follow the links on this page. Please use our Angling Trust membership number 30474.