Why cormorants need European level management

The great cormorant is a conservation success in Europe. Thanks to the protection under the EU Birds Directive, the population grew from some 50 000 birds in the 1970s to more than 2 million birds today. This is good news for bird conservation, but less so for fishes in Europe.

Great cormorants like fish a lot. One bird eats about 180 kg of fish per year, which it catches in our rivers, lakes, ponds, coastal areas and also in aquaculture ponds. All cormorants in Europe eat together more than 300 million kg of fish each year. Counted in numbers of fish, cormorants eat billions of fish each year. This is not a one time event, but happens year after year.

This high level of fish predation has raised concerns about the health of fish populations throughout Europe. Some lakes and rivers that had a healthy biodiversity of fish in the past are now empty. Governments in the EU have agreed that water and habitat quality and biodiversity should meet good ecological status. They did so in the EU Water Framework Directive, and they spend hundreds of millions of euros each year to improve water quality, habitat and biodiversity. Governments and recreational fishers are busy everywhere with fish habitat improvement, to support natural recruitment and biodiversity in the waters that they manage. They also spent many millions of euros on restocking and rehabilitating our fishing waters and have agreed to practice catch and release in many rivers and lakes instead of harvesting the fish.

The cormorant is a migratory bird. It is a colonizing species.  You could hardly find any “sinensis” intermediate cormorants in the last centuries in most European countries. Now they are found across most of Europe.  The cormorant population will continue to grow if no concerted action is taken. Some countries have tried to reduce their cormorant populations. However, if neigbouring countries take no action, then the cormorants replenish quickly in places where they were scared or hunted. They then continue depleting populations of protected and native fish species, such as grayling, brown trout, sea trout, pike, perch, eel and cod.

We need to protect our birds, but equally we need to protect and conserve our fish and aquatic biodiversity.

The European Parliament recognized 17 years ago (in 2008), the increasing conflicts between cormorants, fish, fisheries and aquaculture.  The Parliament requested the preparation and adoption of a European cormorant management plan to minimize the impact of the increasing cormorant population in Europe. This request was repeated in 2018 and 2022, but has yet to come to fruition.

For over 20 years, members of the European Inland Fisheries and Aquaculture Advisory Commission (EIFAAC) have expressed concerns about the increasing cormorant population, and they have tried to address and mitigate the impact of cormorant predation on fish populations, fisheries and aquaculture in their countries. Local and national level efforts have resulted in limited successes. In 2022, EIFAAC issued a resolution on measures to support the protection of vulnerable and endangered fish species from unsustainable predation by cormorants (EIFAAC/31/2022/3) also calling for a European cormorant management plan.

The management of migratory wildlife, birds and fish at regional level is common. There are regional management and conservation plans for many fish and bird species. There is no reason why a migratory transboundary population of cormorants should be an exception and cannot be managed at regional level.

With support from the European Commission, in 2024 EIFAAC started a participatory process to develop a framework for a European Management Plan for the Great Cormorant. So far hundreds of stakeholders have participated in workshops, meetings and consultations to discuss the management measures and the draft framework of the plan.

On 3 June 2025, the Polish Presidency to the Council of Europe and EIFAAC are organizing a Conference on management advice to mitigate cormorant predation impacts. At the conference the second draft of a framework for a European Management Plan for the Great Cormorant will be presented and discussed. The latest information on the impact of cormorant predation on fish, fisheries and aquaculture will also be discussed, including the economic consequences of cormorant predation for fisheries and aquaculture.

EIFAAC and its members expect to submit a high-quality framework for a European Management Plan for the Great Cormorant to the European Parliament by October 2025. All stakeholders are invited to share their views, comments, opinions, and inputs on the framework of the draft plan with the EIFAAC Secretariat.