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United States Department of the Intei'ior 

 ■"' Fish and 'wildlife Service t ''^•d. 



Wildlife -Leaflet 272 



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Chi Gogo, 111. 



August IW;$5 



BIRDS III RBLATION' TO FISHES 1/ 



By Cl.arence Cottam", Assistant Director, and F. M.-Uhler, Biologist 

 Division of Wildlife Research 



Cont 



Page 



Introduction 1 



Causes of fish de^^letion 2 



Fish and bird relationshiiDS, . . 2 



Value of nongame birds ........ 3 



Unjust charges- against birds . . 4 

 Ecological liraits on fish 



abundanc e .... i 5 



Food of birds ooaderaned by- 

 anglers i 5 



Pelicans ,......;. 5 



Double-crested cormorant 5 



Kingfisher - • • • • 6 



Great blue, heron..- ♦ 7, 



Green heron. '......,...,'■ 8 



Black-crowned, night heron...... 8 



ents 



Page 



Food of birds condemned — cont'd 



Yellovj-crowned night heron... 9 



American bittern.. , 9 



Other herons 9 



Gulls and terns 10 



Vlater ouzel, or dipper.. 10 



Osprey, or fish hawk 10 



Mergansers 11 



Preventive or control measures. 12 



Screening and riiring 'ponds. . . 12 



Use o.f traps 13 



Frightening birds- by day 14 



Night frightening devices.... 15 



Patrolling -with firearms..... 16 



INTRODUCTION 



No important group of North American birds is more'vjidely misunderstood 

 in terms of economic relationships than the diverse assemblage commonly 

 classed as "Fish-eating birds." Many persons lump the xvhole, class as destruc- 

 tive because they -asoume that the so-called fish-eaters must be inimical to 

 the popular and widespread sport of angling and even to commercial fishing. 

 The name is not alx.'ays properly applicable, however, as some of the birds so 

 termed do not feed on fishes at all, others only to a limited extent, and many 

 feed primarily on fishes that are.,, either worthless to man or are themselves 

 severely destructive to other fishes. V&ile a few fish-eating birds are known 



V This leaflet supersedes 'lildlife Research and Management Leaflet BS-83 

 issued in May 1937 by the Bureau of Biological Survey,, of the United States 

 DepartmiOnt of Agriculture, which vj'as revised from an article' entitled "The 

 Role of Fish-Beating Birds" in the Progressive Fish Culturist (No-. 14, Jan. 

 1936} , a multigraphed periodical of the then U. S« Bureau of Fisheries. 



