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By The Angler … For The Angler
The water was big and dirty and rising thanks to rain the night before and a sudden rise in temperature causing a lot of snow melt.
What we have found over the last few years is that cormorants do move around up and down the river depending on the water quality etc.
Today’s volunteers and the counts for each roost.
Starting at the top of the system.
Carstairs monitored by UCAPA Bailiffs counted 18 cormorants.
Tulliford (John Reid & Rab Cowan Douglas water angling club) counted 53 cormorants.
Barons Haugh nature reserve. (Graeme River clyde fishing member) counted 0
Bothwell road (Wullie Weir Upper Avon Angling club, Billy Lyndsey, Munro Reid UCAPA and Geo RCF ) counted 65 cormorants.
Strathclyde park (Willie Miller SANA & Matt Mitchell UCAPA) counted 73 cormorants.
Drumpellier country park (David Paterson + others (Avon angling club) counted 1 cormorant.
Mid Clyde ( Midclyde bailiffs) counted 4 cormorants
Total count for today is 214 cormorants
There are usually far more birds roosting on Midclyde but it is my opinion that due to the rise of the river and the poor water quality for feeding the majority of the Midclyde cormorants have moved to Strathclyde park and some birds have moved on to the upper clyde at Tulliford.
In past counts we have no counted birds at Carstairs as we had difficult locating the roosts but now with the help of the bailiffs we can add this roost to future counts which is great news for future monitoring.
Now considering that we have a population of approx 200 birds living and feeding on the Clyde we need to calculate how much of a impact this is having on the fisheries.
With each bird weighing approx 3lbs in weight and it is a known fact that they consume approx 1 third of their body weight each day to survive then these birds are consuming around 214lbs of fish per day.
I would think that 214 birds is something we should be worrying about.
The River Clyde has the same issue as most of the rest of the UK water ways .. To many inland cormorants.
This issue has to be resolved and the only way everyone can resolve this is by reporting the cormorants they see on all of the UK’s waterways.
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(Article by Munro Reid (River Clyde Fishing & Lets Tackle Cancer)
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