DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANTS IN NEW-ENGLAND - POPULATION AND MANAGEMENT HISTORIES

The Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus) was extirpated fr om New England after settlement by Europeans, reportedly becoming re-e stablished as a nesting species in Maine about 1925. Breeding cormoran ts increased rapidly in Maine between 1925 and 1945 and again between the 1970s and the mid 1980s. Currently, cormorants nesting in coastal Maine may be approaching carrying capacity as the rate of population g rowth has declined and birds have begun nesting inland. Breeding cormo rants apparently became established in Massachusetts in the late 1930s and, during the last twenty years, have increased rapidly in coastal New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut (i.e., sou thern New England). Between 1977 and the early 1990s, the rate of incr ease of cormorants nesting in southern New England increased more than five times faster than in Maine. Southern New England may have more l imited suitable nesting habitat than does northern New England, and as cormorants are better protected today than earlier, the time required to reach carrying capacity for breeders in southern New England shoul d be less than in Maine. Concurrent with the increase in numbers oi br eeding cormorants in coastal Maine, there have been repeated reports o f conflicts between these birds and fishing interests. Concerns from t he 1930s to 1950s focused on marine fisheries. In response, almost 188 ,000 cormorant eggs were sprayed with oil between 1944 and 1953. Spray ing failed to reduce the breeding population and the practice was disc ontinued. In the 1960s, state and Federal agencies began an intensifie d program to restore the Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) to New England. Cormorants were documented eating substantial numbers of hatchery-rea red smelts in the mid-1960s in eastern Maine and in the mid 198Os in c entral Maine. These findings prompted the shooting of hundreds of bird s annually. Since 1972, when cormorants came under Federal protection, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has annually issued a master permi t to the State of Maine, which in turn has issued subpermits to warden s and the public to collect cormorants along salmon rivers. Currently Federal and State management authorities are cooperating on a study of cormorant ecology in the Penobscot River-upper Penobscot Bay ecosyste m. In southern New England, conflicts between cormorants and fisheries are also being reported, with at least one stale contemplating a food -habits study The effectiveness of past cormorant management in Maine and the information needed to improve management are discussed.