WASHINGTON - The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is urging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to focus on non-lethal, long-term solutions for resolving the conflict between fish farm and fishing interests and the fish-eating cormorants charged with devastating fish populations.

This position was presented by Elizabeth Stallman, Ph.D., wildlife scientist in wildlife and habitat protection for The HSUS, at a public hearing held yesterday on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Draft Environmental Impact Statement.

According to Stallman, "A long-term, effective solution to this problem includes the use of non-lethal methods at fish farms and a recognition that other factors like habitat destruction from pollution, over-fishing, and introduction of exotic species have had a far greater impact on the decline in open water fish populations than the cormorant has had."

Under pressure from commercial and sport fishermen and aquaculture and fish hatchery managers, the Fish and Wildlife Service is considering a plan to increase the use of lethal means as a method for managing cormorant predation of fish. "The efficacy of such a strategy is questionable," says Stallman. "First, the service's own Draft Environmental Impact Statement concludes that cormorant impact on fish populations is most likely local and limited in length of time. Second, the statement acknowledges the much greater effect pollution and over-fishing have on declining fish populations in open waters. Given these conclusions, a federal plan to increase killing of these birds is simply rushing toward a short-term solution that doesn't address the real problems."

The Fish and Wildlife Service's proposed plan is unlikely to be effective in reducing cormorant predation at fish hatcheries either. Killing birds that have designated a hatchery as territory will only allow other cormorants to move into the vacated territory.

In addition, killing adult cormorants could result in a temporary reduction in competition for food for surviving birds, and may then result in an actual increase in reproduction in the local population. "In short," says Stallman, "the most likely effect of expanding lethal control will be simply to shift the birds around from one site to another."

The Fish and Wildlife Service has acknowledged these shortcomings. The service has previously indicated that attempts to reduce the cormorant population would be labor intensive, expensive, and likely to be ineffective in the long run. They have also stated in published materials that, despite common perception, cormorants have had only a minor effect on commercial and sport fish populations.

The HSUS supports a plan expanding on and improving the non-lethal methods already put to limited use at hatcheries and aquaculture facilities, and a renewed focus on the real causes of fishery declines in open waters. Implementing the proposed plan to expand lethal means to solve the problem sets a dangerous precedent for future management of other fish-eating birds, and is a strategy previously resisted by the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Seven more public hearings on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement will be taking place around the country through the middle of February. The Fish and Wildlife Service will then issue a final Environmental Impact Statement and allow 30 days for public comment. At the conclusion of this process, the service will publish a record decision and national management plan.

Stallman reminds us that it was humans' use of the pesticide DDT and other contaminants causing thinning of eggshells that endangered the cormorant in the first place. "We are now facing an increase in human-wildlife conflict that is the result of the recovery of a population whose survival was jeopardized by us. The onus is on us now to learn to live with these animals."