Syracuse, NY -- Oneida Lake Association officials confirmed Monday that there’s no money in the 2011 federal budget for cormorant harassment on the lake. The state Department of Environmental Conservation is proposing an alternative — a pilot program this fall enlisting volunteers to help. The effort could also be hampered, though, by a lack of funding at the state...
View full sizeA flock of cormorants perch on rocks and logs in Maple Bay on Oneida Lake in this photo from Aug. 22, 2007. For many years, scientists have been trying to manage the number of nesting pairs because the birds are so destructive. Syracuse, NY -- Oneida Lake Association officials confirmed Monday that there’s no money in the 2011 federal budget for cormorant harassment on the lake.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation is proposing an alternative — a pilot program this fall enlisting volunteers to help. The effort could also be hampered, though, by a lack of funding at the state level.
If no action is taken, cormorants would be allowed to live and breed freely on the lake, feeding on its rich fishery for the second year in a row.
Adult cormorants eat, on average, a pound of fish per day and cover their nesting areas with layers of feces that can kill most plant life. During the mid-1990s, Oneida Lake’s walleye and perch population were devastated by the birds, prompting the start of the federal harassment program.
Fishing is big business on Oneida Lake. DEC and federal studies have shown the impact at more than 1,000 jobs and several millions of dollars pumped into the local economy each year.
Trained professionals from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Services began harassing cormorants on Oneida Lake in 2004 at a cost of $1 million a year. That dropped to about $625,000 when the program was discontinued last year.
“This Congress has proved to us twice they don’t care about cormorant management on Oneida and that we can’t count on them,” said Matthew Snyder, president of the Oneida Lake Association. “The OLA and the DEC are going to have to put their heads together and figure out a new way to do this that doesn’t rely on federal dollars.”
Ken Lynch, regional director of the DEC’s Region 7, explained the volunteer proposal. “We are considering a pilot project for this fall to harass the cormorants, to continue past practices taken by the USDA — in essence, offering to train and oversee volunteers,” he said. The program could start by the end of this month and continue through September, he said.
No state funding is available to help with the program, which would be undertaken with assistance from the DEC’s Region 6 staff, Lynch said. Region 6 has jurisdiction over the part of the eastern end of the lake.
Lynch said the DEC is seeking input from volunteers on how to cover the costs for such necessities such as boats, fuel and pyrotechnics. Volunteers would not be allowed to shoot and kill cormorants, which are protected under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
Snyder also emphasized it’s no time for individuals to take it upon themselves to shoot the birds or to attempt to destroy their nests on the lake’s islands. “People should not take matters into their own hands,” he said. “The experts are the people who know how to do this without creating other conflicts, without harming other species or damaging private property.”