Sailing Down-Wind, a Breakwaters' Perspective on the Great Cormorant

Abstract

bution, numbers and foraging activities, this special issue of Ardea highlights some of the latest research findings, but also reflects on the ongoing debate about how we need to see the perceived conflict with fisheries and angling interests that has kept us busy for so long. By bringing together this diverse collection of papers from all over Europe and Israel we are convinced that this will not only lead to a better understanding of the species but will also be of help in addressing the questions around this conflict that still remain. The species is fascinating in its flexibility to respond to changes in environmental conditions. It is perhaps that flexibility, that ever-existing power of Cormorants to find a way out when conditions change, that has attracted the attention of researchers for so many years and, at the same time, has made the birds so thoroughly hated by many who have vested interests in fisheries. Interest ingly, during the same period the Double-crested Cormorant Phalacrocorax auritus has raised the same questions in the United States and Canada and has been subject to rigorous control measures (e.g. Wires 2014). Rather than demonising Cormorants for their predation on fishes, perhaps we can learn a lot from their way of fishing, from the way that they, unlike many human users in the same habitats, have never been shown to over-exploit healthy, natural systems.