The controversial, government-sanctioned mass-killing of cormorants in the Columbia River has sunk to a despicable new low. After slaughtering over 4,000 nesting cormorants on East Sand Island in Oregon, a staggering 16,000 cormorants have abandoned their nests. Their excuse for this biological catastrophe? Eagles.

Blaming Eagles?!

Astonishingly, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokeswoman Amy Echols attempted to lay the blame on eagles. “Bald eagles are known to significantly startle and disperse nesting colonies.” It is ridiculous to suggest this critical blow to wild animals was dealt by eagles, when the gun-toting U.S. Army Corps of Engineers invaded cormorants nests, shot thousands of the birds and sickeningly oiled eggs so babies wouldn’t hatch. THAT is the cause of this significant disturbance!

Dan Roby, a researcher at Oregon State University has debunked the Corps’ suggestion, “I’m pretty confident that’s not what caused the cormorants to abandon the colony,” he said. “We’ve seen that number of eagles out there before. We’ve seen them killing cormorants on their nests, and it doesn’t cause that kind of abandonment.”

The controversial cormorant “management” killings started several years ago, to “protect salmon,” while failing to tackle human activities including overfishing, hydroelectric damming and pollution.

The Audubon Society of Portland and a number of other animal organizations have attempted to sue the U.S. Army Corps and U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and have filed a new lawsuit calling for a halt to the “cormorant management plan.”

Bob Sallinger with the Audubon Society of Portland has said, “Federal agencies have deliberately put the western population of cormorants at direct risk, and it needs to stop.” We couldn’t agree more!

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