310 Correspondence. [,sfAprii 



Correspondence. 



CORMORANTS : ARE THEY PESTS OR OTHERWISE ? 



To the Editors of " The Emu." 



Sirs, — An article appearing under the above heading in the 

 October, 1918, number of The Emu, by Mr. W. T. Forster, is 

 intended, if I read the author's meaning aright, to suggest that 

 the Cormorant — or Shag, as the bird is better known to me — is 

 a wholesale destroyer of a staple article of human food, and that 

 it should be regarded as a thing of evil. It is only fair, however, 

 to Mr. Forster to mention that at the conclusion of this article 

 he states, in the frankest possible manner, that further evidence 

 is necessary before the question can be finally settled. 



Nature, in producing that delicate and beautiful poise which 

 characterizes all her works, has never begrudged her children the 

 reward of their toil. That the Shag is a greedy devourer of fish 

 is indubitably true. It is equally true that in so doing the bird 

 is merely taking its wages for holding in check the many forces 

 inimical to the welfare of fish. Nor is this the only beneficent 

 power it wields. The bird, in eating fish, is still further fulfilling 

 its mission by exercising a wholesome and necessary thinning-out 

 of the unhealthy and of the superfluous members of the finny 

 tribe. 



The economic value of the Shag is, in fact, little understood, 

 and the method of learning it through its destruction is — as 

 evidenced by an instance I am about to relate which came under 

 my personal observation — fraught with unpleasant consequences. 

 Many years ago, in a certain locality in New Zealand, the local 

 anglers, on observing that the Shag was eating an imported fish, 

 concluded that the bird was harmful to their interests, and decreed 

 that it should die. So the old birds were shot, while the eggs 

 and the young were pushed with the aid of long sticks from the 

 nests in the branches of the pohutiikawa trees which grow out- 

 wards from the edge of the precipitous cliffs which front the sea. 

 The Shag disappeared. Mark the sequel : the repressive influence 

 which the bird had exerted on the increase of crustaceans and of 

 other natural enemies of young fish and of ova having been 

 removed, the fish likewise disappeared. 



In 1878, voj-aging from England to Australia, I left the boat 

 at Glenelg and journeyed overland from Adelaide to Melbourne, 

 idling along the Coorong, and lingering by the shores of the lakes. 

 There I feasted abundantly on fish caught by blacks. I have 

 been informed in recent years by Australian ornithologists home 

 on active service that there are fewer Shags in this district at 

 the present time than there were when I was there, forty years 

 ago. Tell me — are there more fish ? — Yours, &c., 



JAS. BUCKLAND, 

 Corres. Memb. R.A.O.U., London. 



[Possibly some South Australian member can say. — Eds.] 



