Alex Gowney
Senior Member & Supporter
Alex,
Firstly my questions were addressed to Neil Blood who says he has practical experience of culling cormorants using firearms. He has chosen not to reply to date regarding the effectiveness of the culling or the actual weapons used.
It is also because I DO know something about shooting that I question the practicality of clubs arming some of their members. Drawing comparisons with shooting pigeons and crows on private farms and estates and doing the same on fisheries, many with public access, is totally irresponsible.
It is because I DO know something about shooting that I understand the limitations of a shotgun regarding its suitability to dispatch cormorants due to its range limitations. On my local waters a shot would have to be taken at a range of up to 60 to 100 yards, a fat lot of good a shotgun would be.
However all the above detracts from my main point which is that it would not be practically possible to deploy sufficient trained people on enough waters SAFELY to make the slightest difference to the cormorant problem. All this gung ho talk of giving clubs the legal ability to blast away at will is completely unworkable. An accident is not only possible, but inevitable, and then we would be back to square one with culling outlawed again and the reputation of angling worse than it already is with the general public
Steve
Steve
I appreciate your questions were addressed to Neil but this is an open forum. If you do not want other members to comment on what you write then you could always just PM the person you are addressing.
I do not agree that it is necessarily totally irresponsible to allowing shooting people to cull cormorants on waters as long as the proper sfatey measures are in place. And a comparison with shooting pigeons and crows is absolutely relevant because I was not advocating a free for all along a tow path as you seem to imply. Of course if that were to happen then it would be unsafe. I realise some of the birds would be beyond the range of a shotgun but that does not mean they would all be. Shooting can act as a deterrent as well as reducing numbers
You are claiming it would not work at all. I think, under the correct circumstances and organisation it would work. So we have to disagree on this point.