Good Evening, Tweeters,
Just came across this on the web and am sitting here infuriated!


Ten Plead Guilty in Bird Slaughter

..c The Associated Press

By WILLIAM KATES

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) -- Ten men -- three Lake Ontario fishing guides and seven
avid anglers -- pleaded guilty in the slaughter of as many as 2,000
cormorants, a federally protected bird with a voracious appetite for fish.

In federal court Thursday, nine of the men admitted shooting the birds last
summer. The 10th man admitted hiding the weapons.

Sport fishermen and guides on eastern Lake Ontario have long complained that
the cormorants are ruining the fishing and threatening their livelihoods.

The birds were shot on Little Galloo Island, an uninhabited 52 acres five
miles offshore that is the cormorant's principal colony in eastern Lake
Ontario, with an estimated 7,500 nesting pairs. Hundreds of the birds were
wounded and left to die; many of the hatchlings were left to starve to death.

``There is no excuse for the inhumane way in which these birds were
slaughtered and left to die,'' said Ron Lambertson, regional director for the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The defendants could get up to six months of home confinement and fines of up
to $2,500 at sentencing Aug. 11. They will also have to donate collectively a
tax-deductible $27,500 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

The double-crested cormorant is protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

In December, a state study reported that the cormorant consumed an estimated
87.5 million fish from eastern Lake Ontario in 1998, including 1.3 million
smallmouth bass, the lake's most popular sport species.

Last month, state officials unveiled a plan to reduce the Little Galloo
colony to 1,500 nests within five years by killing adult birds and spraying
eggs with oil to suffocate the embryos.

But the defendants couldn't wait and instead ``acted as vigilantes,'' said
John Cahill, state commissioner of environmental conservation.

Defense attorney James McGraw said his clients, Ronald Ditch and his three
sons, were pushed to extreme measures by the state's inaction.

Ditch has been a fishing guide on the lake for more than 30 years and saw the
birds ``cutting into his livelihood, ruining the health of the lake and
destroying the local economy,'' the attorney said.

``They waited and waited and waited and watched the destruction of the
fishery. Finally, they did something about it,'' McGraw said.