Army Corps of Engineers to kill 16,000 cormorants on East Sand Island in Columbia River Estuary

By: Rob Davis
The Oregonian

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced plans Thursday to shoot and kill 16,000 double-crested cormorants on an island near the Columbia River’s mouth starting next spring, in an effort to improve survival of endangered juvenile salmon and steelhead.

 The cormorants, black seabirds increasingly nesting on East Sand Island, feed on juvenile fish swimming out to the Pacific Ocean. They’ve been eating those migrating smolts in growing numbers, enough that scientists say it’s impacting the species’ survival rates.

The Army Corps, which manages hydropower dams throughout the Northwest, aims to kill about 20 percent of the cormorant population on East Sand Island each year. Read more