How do they know?

[piscatus absentis]

The loch was stocked yesterday and today about 20 cormorants and 50 goosanders appeared.

How do they know?

[garryh]

Dod if there are stocked fish in the loch they will be there.i know of one owner who tried shooting them and gave up. as one disappeared  another one took its place.you'd have to get rid of every cormorant in the land.they are attracted by unnaturally high stocking densities.that's one of the reasons you never see more than the odd one or two on wild unmanaged lochs.
cheers Garry

[Wildfisher]

The shoaling tendency  of daft stocked rainbows are especially attractive to cormorants and make them easy meat.

[Part-time]

I think it's that cormorants (and many other bird species) are able to see well at long distance. As soon as they see feeding behaviour in other birds they home in on it.

[invictor]

I used to look after a small club water, we stocked with 1000 11 inch Brownies on the first of March,by the second there were 18 cormorants on the loch hoovering the stock up. I managed to get a licence to shoot 3 birds, the problem was getting a member to do the deed. We eventually overcame the problem by stocking in mid April when the bird were nesting in other areas. As to how do they know?, nature is a wonderfull thing.

[Wildfisher]

The garden analogy is not a good one. If rabbits ate my cabbages rabbit fencing would be the answer. In most areas you cannot shoot them for fear of endangering the public anyway. Just because some stockie bashery owner chooses to stock fish does not give him the right to kill wildlife in the eyes of the law. What if it was ospreys?  Should he be allowed to kill them? What?s the difference?  Losing stockies  to fish eating birds is just part of the cost of running one of these places, they should factor it into the price of a ticket.  In my opinion they are far too cheap anyway and the cost of a ticket does not reflect the damage caused by the fish farms that supply them.  Yes it must be annoying, but  no one forces them to do it.  Stockies are easy meat for predators. Most of our  wild lochs are stuffed with bandies, millions of them, bite sized morsels. Why are birds not emptying them?  My guess is  they  are wary and not easy to catch compared to stockies  in a small loch. It?s like the difference between taking a packet of bird seed and emptying it onto a bird table or scattering it over the entire garden.

[sandyborthwick]

It's probably the stocking policy that needs changing as opposed to shooting the birds. Either stock the fish too large for them to eat approx 3LB or too small to make it viable for the bird.

If the loch needs replenishing with fish why not replace the lost bigger fish with lots of small fingerlings. The costs and nature would give a good advantage later on if patience can persist. You could have +60 fingerling brown trout for the cost of a 1LB stockie. It would be difficult for the birds to hoover those all up. Nature would wise the survivors up and the loch would be far more natural.

Talking Salmon and netters of old did you know that the Scottish Salmon farmers are reportedly legally shooting 5,000 seals a year and there's a declining population of 23,000 common seals(dwn by 50% in five years in some places). There are far more Cormorants than seals so one has to question the rational behind all this.

The EU is rapidly re-assessing the question of Cormorant protection as several countries are now reporting environmental disasters on waters due to their over predation on fish stocks inland. It may be that nature has turned to bite mankind on the arse.

IMHO the thing boils down to natures way as much as it grates the birds are doing what is required by nature to survive in the Eco-system we have created. It could be argued that by over fishing the seas to make pellets to feed Salmonids and others for stocking the birds are victims of fish farmers and the madness of mankind who has stolen their natures larder for his own enjoyment.

Sandy B.O.

[River Chatter]

I like this guy... just don't tell my minion!  :lol:

[sandyborthwick]

I like his 20 year rule on water quality in the last paragraph, imagine if they tried that one on below Salmon farms - might be a few less Salmon farmers in 20 years time :twisted:.

Mind you the way Gordons mob is going Sunday roast may well be of the long eared variety for a lot of people soon. Not a problem for me I have always liked rabbit and it is good for you.

Sandy B.O.