Fighting Cormorant Population


The fight to keep the cormorant population down on Little Galloo Island continues. Biologists with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation oiled bird eggs on the island last Friday.

DEC officials navigated through hundreds of gull nests filled with eggs and newly hatched birds, to find the cormorant nests they were looking for.

The five DEC workers found 2,000 cormorant nests. 15 years ago, there were 8,000. The DEC oils the eggs four times a year to keep the birds from decimating the small mouth bass and perch populations in Lake Ontario.

"What the oiling of the eggs does is it stops them from hatching," said Russ McCullough, senior aquatic biologist. "It does not let the adult bird know that the eggs aren't going to hatch. If they realized the eggs are going to hatch they just lay new ones."

Click on the picture above to see Caitlin Cissne's report.
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
, Watertown, NY

On Demand


What's On TonightFull Schedule