The federal government has issued a death sentence for nearly 11,000 cormorants living on East Sand Island on the Columbia River in northern Oregon, with a brutal culling program in effect since spring of 2015. Hunters have been ruthlessly gunning the birds down over the water as they search for food. After dark, snipers with night-vision goggles have been shooting the cormorants in their nests. 

The cormorant slaughter is cruel, cowardly and utterly pointless.

The ill-conceived culling plan –  headed by the US Army Corps of Engineers, US Fish and Wildlife Services, and USDA Wildlife Services – is supposed to protect the endangered salmon and steelhead, which the cormorants eat.  But the truth is that the innocent birds are merely scapegoats being used to cover up the government’s own violation of the Endangered Species Act.  The true threats to the fish are the hydroelectric dams created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers itself. 
 
Migrating salmon and steelhead swim through a series of eight dams and reservoirs along the lower Columbia and Snake Rivers – and only about half of the juvenile fish survive the trip.              
 
From the US Army Corps of Engineer’s own website: “The dams impede juvenile and adult migrations to and from the ocean by their physical presence and by creating reservoirs. The reservoirs behind the dams slow water velocities, alter river temperatures, and increase predation potential. Reduced water velocity increases the time it takes juveniles to migrate downstream, higher water temperatures may have adverse effects on juvenile and adult behavior, and predators find prey more easily in slower­-moving water.”

Further proving the uselessness of the cormorant cull, biologists at the US Fish and Wildlife Services found that the salmon and steelheads not eaten by cormorants will just be eaten by other predators. Yet the federal government STILL insists on killing the cormorants instead of addressing the REAL problem!!

LCA and Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK) are working to stop the cormorant hunt (read more about these efforts HERE). The cormorants need your help.
 
Take action today to stop the massacre. Please sign to urge the US Army Corps of Engineers to end the cormorant slaughter and start focusing on the REAL threats to endangered fish.