DNR begins program for removal of double-crested cormorants from Santee Cooper lakes
The S.C. Department of Natural Resources (DNR) will conduct two training sessions to qualify interested persons for the legal taking of double-crested cormorants from the Santee Cooper lakes. The training sessions are scheduled for Tuesday, January 7, 2014 beginning at 6 p.m. and Saturday, February 8th beginning at 2 p.m. Both training sessions will be held at the Santee Cooper Auditorium located at Santee Cooper headquarters at 1 Riverwood Drive, Moncks Corner, SC. Persons wishing to participate in the Santee Cooper cormorant removal program will be required to attend one of the two training sessions, complete an application and a DNR Volunteer Form. Pre-registration is not required.
The training will emphasize safety, area of action, species identification, weapon restrictions and program dates and hours. After participating in the training session, a permit will be issued to take double-crested cormorants. Only those that attend one complete training session will be granted a permit. All participants in the removal program will be required to have both a permit and valid South Carolina hunting license at all times during removal activities.
DNR is authorized by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to designate agents for this action under the Depredation Order for Double-crested Cormorants to Protect Public Resources.
The effects of migrant cormorants that winter on the Santee Cooper Lakes include competition with the resident fish population for clupeid (herrings, shads, menhaden, etc.) forage, direct predation on out-migrating anadromous juvenile shad and herring, direct predation on returning ana
Semper Fi
18’ Sterling
115 Yamaha
Big Ugly Homemade Blue Push Pole
Im currently living in NC. Would be a bit more than im willing to do to spend the money on gas and traveling back and forth to kill those things, however, I hope somebody kills them all. Grew up on Santee, my grandfather was a striper/catfish guide before he passed. My grandmother still lives there.
quote: I must give you the classic receipt for the preparation and cooking of a cormorant. Having shot your cormorant, (Modern fishermen still call the bird the black plague and beg the Department of the Environment to allow culling) hold it well away from you as you carry it home; these birds are exceedingly verminous and the lice are said to be not entirely host-specific. Hang up by the feet with a piece of wire, soak in petrol and set on fire. This treatment both removes most of the feathers and kills the lice.
When the smoke has cleared away, take the cormorant down and cut off the beak. Send this to the local Conservancy Board who, if you are in the right area, will give you 3/6d or sometimes 5/- for it. (That?s 17p or 10c in new money) Bury the carcase, preferably in a light sandy soil, and leave it there for a fortnight. This is said to improve the flavour by removing, in part at least, the taste of rotting fish.
Dig up and skin and draw the bird. Place in a strong salt and water solution and soak for 48 hours. Remove, dry, stuff with whole, unpeeled onions: the onion skins are supposed to bleach the meat to a small extent, so that it is very dark brown instead of being entirely black.
Simmer gently in seawater, to which two tablespoons of chloride of lime have been added, for six hours. This has a further tenderising effect. Take out of the water and allow to dry, meanwhile mixing up a stiff paste of methylated spirit and curry powder. Spread this mixture liberally over the breast of the bird.
Finally roast in a very hot oven for three hours. The result is unbelievable. Throw it away.
quote: I must give you the classic receipt for the preparation and cooking of a cormorant. Having shot your cormorant, (Modern fishermen still call the bird the black plague and beg the Department of the Environment to allow culling) hold it well away from you as you carry it home; these birds are exceedingly verminous and the lice are said to be not entirely host-specific. Hang up by the feet with a piece of wire, soak in petrol and set on fire. This treatment both removes most of the feathers and kills the lice.
When the smoke has cleared away, take the cormorant down and cut off the beak. Send this to the local Conservancy Board who, if you are in the right area, will give you 3/6d or sometimes 5/- for it. (That?s 17p or 10c in new money) Bury the carcase, preferably in a light sandy soil, and leave it there for a fortnight. This is said to improve the flavour by removing, in part at least, the taste of rotting fish.
Dig up and skin and draw the bird. Place in a strong salt and water solution and soak for 48 hours. Remove, dry, stuff with whole, unpeeled onions: the onion skins are supposed to bleach the meat to a small extent, so that it is very dark brown instead of being entirely black.
Simmer gently in seawater, to which two tablespoons of chloride of lime have been added, for six hours. This has a further tenderising effect. Take out of the water and allow to dry, meanwhile mixing up a stiff paste of methylated spirit and curry powder. Spread this mixture liberally over the breast of the bird.
Finally roast in a very hot oven for three hours. The result is unbelievable. Throw it away.<hr heig
Wish DNR would let us kill some up here in Columbia. They are hell on the rainbows and browns in the Saluda. Might have to sign up for the class and head to Santee.
The training sessions will be held Tuesday, Jan. 7, at 6 p.m., and Saturday, Jan. 8, at 2 p.m. at the Santee Cooper Auditorium at Santee Cooper headquarters at 1 Riverwood Drive in Moncks Corner. Pre-registration is not required.
I went by the ramp at Red Bank on Lake Marion today. The DNR stocking truck was there along with several state and county cars. Everyone was on the dock (pier). There were several hundred cormorants just off the ramp about 100 yds away. Don’t know what they were stocking. Looked like the birds were waiting to eat what ever it was they were putting in the lake.
This sounds like fun. Saw no less than a thousand on Marion two weekends ago. They were all piled up in one area. Not sure if the fog had them laying low. It was the most I have ever seen in one area.
