A new policy for management of Double-crested Cormorants in the United States and an example of its implementation.

In the fall of 2003, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), in cooperation with USDA-Wildlife Services (USDA-WS), completed an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the management of Double-crested Cormorants (DCCOs) in the United States. The USFWS subsequently published new regulations to implement the EIS proposed strategy. One part of the new regulations, a “public resource depredation order” (PRDO), allows state wildlife agencies, tribes, and USDA-WS to control DCCOs on a localized level to protect fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats in 24 states. We’ll discuss this new policy and will highlight the management activities, including monitoring and evaluation efforts, occurring in one of the states working under the PRDO: those of the USDA-WS program in Michigan which, in 2004 and 2005, implemented a plan to reduce DCCO foraging in the Les Cheneaux Islands area of Lake Huron as a means of improving the yellow perch fishery.