Cormorants perched in a flock. Courtesy of Pyeongchang-gun.

It has been more than 70 days since some local governments in the watersheds of Bukhan River and Namhan River began culling cormorants to protect fish stocks, but they have not achieved much success. This is because the area where the cormorants can be caught is limited, and hunters are reluctant to capture them due to the cost. Inland fishermen have expressed concerns, saying, “If the capture method that does not take into account the migration characteristics of cormorants continues, the culling operation will fail.”
According to Pyeongchang-gun, Gangwon Province, on March 2, the military began full-scale capture activities from March 15 with the cooperation of local hunters. This is in response to the revision of the Enforcement Rules of the Wildlife Protection and Management Act, which designated great cormorants as harmful wildlife. Known to consume 600 to 700 grams of fish a day per bird, great cormorants are the most hated bird by inland fishermen. A migratory bird that used to breed in Primorsky Krai and Sakhalin and descend to Korea and Japan every winter, the great cormorant has been territorial since the 2000s due to the effects of climate change, and is currently estimated to have 23,000 to 30,000 individuals in Korea.
Pyeongchang-gun first designated three areas, including two fish farms and one fishing spot, as cormorant-capture zones, and by the end of March, 60 cormorants were captured with firearms. The cormorants were first captured at a local trout farm early last year after they attacked and ate 45,000 to 50,000 fish, so the county started capturing them at farms and fishing spots.
However, the Pyeongchang River area, where the largest number of great cormorants gathered, was not designated as a capture zone because there were no inland fishermen with fishing rights in the area. The local government can only designate the surrounding area as a capture zone after conducting a field survey if there is direct damage caused by cormorants in the fishing, aquaculture, and inland fishery sectors.
“Even if we conduct trapping operations around fish farms and fishing spots, we are having difficulty eradicating the cormorants because they fly back to the Pyeongchang River,” said Jeong Byeong-yeop, head of the environment department in Pyeongchang-gun.
The lack of participation from hunters is also a problem. Hunters are paid 20,000 won for capturing a cormorant. But catching harmful birds and beasts, such as elk (50,000 won) and wild boar (270,000 won), brings higher rewards.
“It's more profitable to catch elk or wild boar at night than to catch a cormorant with a firearm stored at a police station during the day,” said a hunter who requested anonymity.
As a result, few cormorants have been captured in the Pyeongchang area since April. The situation is the same in Yanggu-gun, upstream of Bukhan River.
In March, Yanggu-gun organized a mobile trapping team and captured 477 cormorants after more than two months of operations. This was only half of the original goal, and the cormorants are now swarming in tributaries such as Seocheon River, which is not a trapping area, and eating native fish.
The cost of capturing cormorants is also high, with a typical two-hour boat trip costing 50 liters of gasoline. Yanggu-gun provides rewards to the hunters, as well as gas expenses. In addition, Inje County captured 117 cormorants by the end of April, while Yeongwol-gun captured only 10 during the same period. The government, on the other hand, is reportedly reluctant to expand the trapping area, considering the risk of safety accidents due to the use of firearms.
“To effectively combat cormorants, we need to increase support for hunters and expand the trapping area according to local conditions,” said Jeong Young-hee, head of the ecological resources team in Yanggu-gun.