Due to human activity, cormorants almost went extinct in the 1970th. The EU Birds Directive adopted in 1979 made illegal to kill, capture, disturb them, destroy, or rob their nests. The measures have helped the cormorant population in Europe to bounce back showing over twenty-fold increase within the past 30 years, reaching about two million.
Cormorants, a protected sea bird, eat much of the Baltic Sea’s fish. Fishermen and fish farmers, detest the bird’s love of seafood, it is even on an Estonian hunting schedule, but sportsmen have not so far solved the problem. But there is no problem, says the Estonian Ornithological Society, which has challenged in court a government rule allowing the spraying of cormorant eggs with oil (which prevents hatching). They say reports from numerous government and private bodies stating that 33,000 pairs of cormorants devour thousands of tonnes of Estonian fish are not important. The court challenge to government rules to restrict cormorant populations has evoked the expected reactions. Ornithologists say that oiling eggs will not cause the birds to leave the territory and is ineffective. Also, the cormorant eats the round goby, an invasive species with no commercial value that fishermen equally detest. The Ornithological Society also testified that the catch of fish by Estonian fishermen has almost doubled in recent years.
On the other side of the contest are coastal fishers’ groups and the government. Fishers’ groups sound alarms about the increased numbers of cormorants in the Väinameri Strait, in the Gulf of Riga and the Gulf of Finland, as well as in the vicinity of the Pärnu River. According to fishermen, the intensive breeding of cormorants threatens Estonian fish stocks, the state of nature and the successful spawning of fish, especially salmon and European smelt.
The government, which has decided the bird is not an endangered species but that Estonian fish may be, has concluded its oil spraying policies and other efforts will solve the issue. The case will now be settled in court.