Columbia River estuary salmon going to the birds
Monday, May 10, 2010 at 12:01AM 
Some pretty staggering juvenile salmon predation numbers due to the growing double crested cormorant and Caspian tern populations on East Sand Island on the Columbia River.
East Sand Island holds the largest double-crested cormorant colony in western North America, consisting of about 12,087 breeding pairs. Researchers estimate that the cormorants nesting at East Sand last year consumed about 11.1 million juvenile salmonids in 2009, most of which were subyearling chinook salmon.
The Caspian tern colony, one of the largest in the world, consumed an estimated 6.4 million juvenile salmoind in 2009.
If you combine the 2009 juvenile salmon losses between cormorants and terns it represents 15% of Columbia estuary juvenile salmon.
LINK (Via:The Columbia Basin Journal)
save our wild salmon in Conservation, Environment
Reader Comments (2)
Time to boycott the cormorants and terns... Have they no soul? Don't they know there are plenty of non-threatened fish species to consume? Maybe we should go Yellowstone style circa 1900 and go have an egg stomping party.
On the North Shore of Lake Superior cormorants are a major problem preying on juvenile steelhead as they migrate to the lake. Once in a while the DNR will shoot a few or crush some eggs, but not nearly enough...