Nobody loves the cormorant. Unkempt-looking when it stands on a rock with its wings outspread - digesting its food, maybe - vaguely sinister, and it probably smells awful. Not only is the cormorant unloved, but anglers and sometimes sea-fishermen seem to be always planning its demise. You can understand how they would be feared by owners of private fisheries or by those who run fish-farms. In eastern France there is a place called Les Dombes where huge fish farming work goes on and, it is believed, the rule that you must have a licence to shoot these birds is often treated lightly.
But David Cabot in a new book, Ireland A Natural History (Harper Collins £17.99), gives us a good, balanced view. In Lough Ramor, County Cavan, a reasonably good trout lake, an examination of undigested remains in cormorant pellets showed that coarse fish, roach and perch were the main species taken, with few or no brown trout, eels or pike recorded. "The increasing spread and abundance of roach is certainly linked to the growth and expansion of parts of the national cormorant population so clearly witnessed at some colonies."
It is comparatively easy for naturalists to keep track of them, writes Cabot, because so many get caught in nets or fish traps. They are big and easily seen. Still, there are a lot of them about. For example, 1,827 pairs on Lambay Island, near Dublin and lesser, but significant, colonies in islands all around our coasts. Do they eat a lot of our favourite sea fish? A study of regurgitated food around the Little Saltee colony showed that 76 per cent of the catch comprised wrasse, three kinds named, one unidentified. A Dublin fish shop was asked if they sold wrasse. "Never heard of it" was the reply.
Now, of course, if a cormorant suddenly appears on your favourite trout stream, you know that he can only get trout and maybe salmon parr - so, bad news. But generally the impression you get from Cabot is that it is not nearly as destructive of the fish we like to eat, sea or freshwater, as some believe. The French hunting magazines, for example, go into fits at the increase of cormorant population that they believe to be taking place in their country.
And, in the case of a small trout stream, as mentioned above, you would not be human if you did not grudge it a meal and hastened its departure to other feeding grounds. And those of you with long memories will recall the case of the author of The Fowler in Ireland who reported that he shot a cormorant which could not fly - because it had swallowed or half-swallowed a three pound trout. Y