Wildlife management responds to political direction that, in
turn, responds to public demand. The public and the politicians
they influence cannot be expected to know, or care, about the
complexities inherent to the natural world. Everything must be
simplified before it can be explained to the public. Fish are in
decline, cormorants eat fish, ergo, cormorants are responsible
for the decline in fish. This scenario is, generally, refuted by
the scientific evidence, and cormorant detractors, be they the
general public or wildlife managers, can act as though this
evidence does not exist (although strides are being made,
especially in Canada). (Painting by Barry Kent MacKay) For the
past 200 years there have been numerous studies of double-
crested and other species of cormorants, both in North American
and abroad, a large number of them designed to examine the
“impact” cormorants have on various fish species. In response to
FEIS, the American Ornithologists Union (AOU) struck a panel of
ornithologists, not exclusi