A few years ago I rarely ever saw a cormorant anywhere. This has changed. By my admittedly rough count there are now about fifty-six billion cormorants in and around the Toronto area. If you go to the tip of the reclaimed land at Colonel Sam Smith Park in the early morning you will sometimes see them heading west in numbers that make the 401 look empty. And I'm barely exaggerating.
Because there are so many of them, the Province has culled (i.e. killed) significant numbers of them in the past, especially toward the east end of Lake Ontario. They're considered a nuisance because when nesting they can completely strip trees of vegetation. They also eat prodigious amounts of fish and of course make more and more little cormorants like the one at the bottom of the post.
I'll let someone else debate whether they should be culled. There are an awful lot of them. Still, I kind of like them. A very large colony nests on the Leslie Street Spit in an area that is closed to the public.
You know what I'm going to say: Click to enlarge.
