“Over the past 20 years, we’ve seen a huge increase in their numbers in the Baltic Sea … and this, of course, is hindering the recovery of some of our fish stocks,” Kullgren said, adding that “we’ve seen two to three times more losses when it comes to landings.”
Finland’s Agriculture Minister Sari Essayah doubled down, saying that cormorants are also a threat to aquaculture — a point echoed by Austria — and called on the European Commission to review EU laws to allow “population control.”
Czech counterpart Zdeněk Nekula added that damages from cormorants amount to about €9 million in his country. “This significantly undermines the competitiveness of producers as well as biodiversity in free waters,” the minister said.
Population explosion
The EU fishing industry also warned that seals and cormorants are a threat to the bloc’s food security.
“The exploding seal and cormorant populations are clearly breaking the natural ecosystem balance and posing a severe threat to the continuation of fishing livelihoods,” a spokesperson for industry association Europêche said.
“In Baltic coastal areas, seals and cormorants consume as much fish as is caught by fishing” and “in the context of food sovereignty, a fish preyed upon by cormorants is not available for human consumption and has to be imported,” they added.
