A look at predators and prey

Dear editor,
We applaud John Nelson’s letter to the editor concerning cormorants on Rainy Lake, and wildlife in general.
The attitude that fish stocks exist for, or are only the property of, humans is both a senseless and absurd point of view. Many different predators, and prey, depend on fish stocks to survive, without which species an ecological collapse could occur.
We must realize that fish stocks and game herds belong to, and are a part of, wildlife too. Contrary to Allan Kielczewski’s letter to the editor, cormorants are not the cause of loss of fish stocks, but rather human incompetence when it comes to managing wildlife, and this attitude that such prey exist only for the use of people.
As Aldo Leopold said himself, “You cannot love game and hate predators. The land is one organism.”
The depletion of fish stocks began long before the cormorants and pelicans reached a population peak. Previous attempts by people or government agencies to increase prey populations at the cost of predators have resulted in disaster.
As Allan Kielczewski mentioned in his letter, deer and geese populations are out of control. The main predator of deer is wolves, and past attempts to exterminate wolves, as well as endeavours by the government to increase other prey populations by wiping out wolves, has aided in the current over-population of deer. Another example is Lake Erie, which was once the most polluted and eutrophic of the Great Lakes, is now one of the cleanest and most healthy of the Lakes.
But the introduction of trout, which are not indigenous to Lake Erie, was done to promote sports-fishing. Which worked well, but recently the trout have turned out to be such proficient predators that commercial fisheries on Lake Erie are being wiped out because native fish populations are being weeded out by the trout.
And everyone is familiar with the disasters that have happened in Australia due to the introduction of foreign species to an ecosystem where they do not belong, or the removal of a species that does belong. It is not so much local fisherman or local commercial fisheries, but large commercial fisheries and government mismanagement that cause the loss of fish stocks and other wildlife. The point of these examples is that humans are incompetent in managing wildlife.
Predator and prey relationships (such as cormorants and fish) balance and moderate one another’s populations. We have to remember that the fish do not belong to us exclusively, but rather are needed by all of the ecosystem. If you wipe out the predator, then the prey population increases until it is out of control.
The population continues to increase until there is not enough food to support its numbers, and the prey’s population crashes. This is not due to predators, but to the loss of the predator species. When prey and predators are left alone to exist together in nature, they maintain one another’s population in viable numbers, in cycles where both populations rise and fall.
The explosive population of deer in Ontario, and the damage this causes, is a good example of this. The wiping out of the wolf population, the main predator of deer, has caused this. Situations such as our current one on Rainy Lake are not due primarily to local fisherman or commercial fisheries, but rather to government agencies unwilling to do that which would maintain stocks and wildlife populations. In the end, it is due to human actions, not to other wildlife.
Cormorants are not a danger to the ecosystem, but a part of it, and have been for centuries. Humans are incompetent at managing wildlife.
Neither can one compare archaic methodology or situations, such as China, nor different parts of the world, to the local and current case of the cormorants, pelican and fish stocks. It is unreasonable to think that wildlife, like anything else, remains the same over time, or is the same over the globe.
We must remember that as the human population increases and expands, it increasingly moves in to the territories of wildlife. The wildlife have as much right to these territories as we do, as well as the right to survive and flourish. We must learn to share our world with wildlife, all wildlife. Not just those who suit us, or who please for purposes of sport or food.
Scott Catherall
Laurance Catherall