Pacific Free Press was launched in March 2007 by Dutch-Canadian Richard
Kastelein of V.O.F. Expathos, in the Netherlands along with Chris Cook- CFUV radio journalist and Editor in Chief of Pacific Free Press. Cook is based in , Victoria, British Columbia.
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the slag-heap of lies, ignorance and witless diversion that has buried
public discourse today. Pacific Free Press provides a new venue for
disseminating hard news and insightful, fact-based analysis of the
harsh realities too often ignored or distorted by the mainstream press.
by Peaceful Parks Coalition Parks Canada has announced their intention to
apply lethal controls on nesting double-crested cormorants at Middle
Island, Point Pelee National Park on Lake Erie.
Please get involved. Parks Canada must be told
that wild places must remain wild, and that lethal control of a native
species is unacceptable.
Parks Canada has a mandate to protect the ecological integrity of areas of biological significance under their care.
Allowing nature to fluctuate with natural forces is the essence of preserving ecological integrity.
They are not mandated to destroy native species that they decide are undesirable.
Point Pelee National Park in partnership with the Ontario Ministry of
Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is planning an
all out assault on nesting double-crested cormorants on the Lake Erie
Archipelago Islands.
The Lake Erie Archipelago Islands are a cluster of islands in Lake Erie
shared between Ontario and Ohio. Middle Island, part of Point Pelee
National Park, is the most southern point in Canada and nesting site
for thousands of colonial waterbirds.
These islands are somewhat remote but over the years have been harmed
by haphazard development and a history of military weapons testing.
Many of the smaller islands have been abandoned by their private
landowners, and have been re-colonized by some of North America's most
spectacular colonial waterbirds, such as pelicans and double-crested
cormorants.
Parks Canada, in partnership with Ontario Parks and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to kill
thousands of cormorants throughout Lake Erie as part of a larger
continental plan to reduce the cormorant population across North
America throughout its nesting grounds and migration route.
Why Kill Nesting Birds?
There are two reasons why government fish and wildlife agencies kill cormorants.
The primary reason is because double-crested cormorants eat fish.
They have sparked an irrational hatred among sport anglers who accuse
the bird of depleting fish stocks even though they have no scientific
evidence to justify their claims. Because government fish and wildlife
agencies receive revenue from the sale of fishing and hunting licenses,
as well as revenue from gun sales in the United States, they keep
anglers happy regardless of the harm done to the environment.
The second reason is because guano deposits from tree nesting
cormorants over time can alter the local environment. Large colonies
of cormorants, ranging from hundreds to thousands, can alter the local
environment within 20 years but this is a natural process with
ecological benefits.
But killing thousands of native North American migratory birds across
international jurisdictions is not simply about saving a few 'green'
trees.
The Ontario government first began shooting nesting cormorants in 2004
at Presqu'ile Provincial Park on Lake Ontario killing over 10,000 in
three years. By oiling eggs to suffocate the unhatched chick, they
killed thousands more in the Georgian Bay area of Lake Huron.
The additional killing on Lake Erie will make the whole Great Lakes
basin, the primary nesting ground for migrating cormorants,
inhospitable and dangerous. Combined with efforts in the United States
to kill cormorants on their `flyway' or migration route, it will leave
no place safe for these birds anywhere in North America.
Carolinian Life Zone
Parks Canada complains that nesting cormorants are causing significant
stress to the island's flora community, and that Middle Island
represents a unique remnant of the Carolinian Life Zone. But the
Carolinian Life Zone, characterized by deciduous forest and warmer
climate, is primarily found south of the Great Lakes within the United
States, and is not globally unique.
Its northern boundary reaches into southwestern Ontario stretching from
Sarnia to Toronto. Most of this area has suffered severe deforestation
and shoreline erosion because of intensive agriculture and urbanization.
If Parks Canada and the Ontario government are serious about protecting
the northern boundary of the Carolinian Life Zone than they must
address the root cause of landscape degradation - urban sprawl,
intensive agricultural, shoreline development, and invasive species.
And Stop Killing Birds.
October 2007
Take Action
Send comments to:
John Baird, Minister of the Environment
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0A6
(no stamp required), or
Email: Baird.J@gc.ca
Peaceful Parks Coalition, P.O. Box 326, Station B, Toronto, Ontario M5T 2W2
Have you seen what these birds have done over here? written by a guest,
October 29, 2007
Come visit. See what the birds have done to their surrounding environment. You may want to revisit your opinion. The damage is not from agriculture or expanding cities (as you claim). They have decimated islands where none of your agriculture or urbanization issues exist.
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Very saddened by this decision written by a guest,
October 29, 2007
We visit the area frequently. Sure it's messy, but so what? Is that a reason to kill them outright? Where else are they to go? They are driven off of any other suitable habitat - that is the only sactuary left for them. Instead of killing them, they should clean the island regularly. It may not be the easiest solution, but it's the right thing to do. Maybe you want to revisit your opinion.
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... written by guest,
November 16, 2007
Hasn't human activity destroyed the environment?... who's worse, us or the birds?
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Clean the island of guano? written by JC_Science,
March 12, 2008
Are you serious? Besides being impossible, it's not going to restore the ecosystem the cormorants have destroyed. There are nine listed endangered species there that Parks Canada is legally required to protect.
It's hard to believe a so-called enviromental group like Peaceful Parks is not only against protecting endangered species, but they argument is that it's ok for the Carolinian ecoystem to be destroyed, because it exists elsewhere. So is it ok for polar bears to disappear from Ontario, or caribou, or fish with northern ranges that barely make it into southern Ontario? They all exist elsewhere.
For that matter, where's the proof cormorants are native to Lake Erie in anywhere near the numbers they currently exist at. Cormorants are from northwestern Ontario.
Writings 
Parks Canada has announced their intention to
apply lethal controls on nesting double-crested cormorants at Middle
Island, Point Pelee National Park on Lake Erie. 
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