Cormorants face illegal persecution near fish farms and angling sites despite legal protection. Understanding the ecological context and legal framework helps reduce conflict.
Illegally killed cormorants — shot and left or poisoned — suffer welfare harm that is compounded by the typically poor accuracy of informal shooting. Cormorants wounded and not retrieved die slowly from their injuries. The welfare solution is a combination of legal deterrence methods (netting of fish farm pens, scaring devices) and the legal control framework that allows licensed management as a last resort when deterrence fails.