Potential Effects of Double-crested Cormorants on Largemouth Bass in Lake Chicot, Arkansas
Fisheries Outstanding Technical Paper
Fisheries managers and anglers are concerned about the effects that increasing over-wintering populations of piscivorous double-crested cormorants Phalacrocorax auritus have on sport fishes across North America. We estimated the mortality of the largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides population due to predation by cormorants on a 2024-ha oxbow lake in southeastern Arkansas. Cormorants consumed an estimated 0.05%-6.20% of the largemouth bass population in 2001. Consumption ranged widely because of the variability associated with our estimates of the number of days per year...
