Crawford bill OKs fish-farm bird kills

Legislation in Congress would help Arkansas fish farmers in a battle against double-crested cormorants when they arrive in the state later this winter.

U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., on Friday filed House Resolution 6425, or the Safeguard Aquaculture Act.

The legislation, if approved, effectively would put on hold a federal judge's April ruling against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an arm of the federal Department of Interior. U.S. District Judge John Bates said the agency violated federal environmental law in how it issued "depredation orders" that allow fish farmers or wildlife management officials to kill cormorants deemed a threat to aquaculture or to public resources.

Congress is in session for a few more days before taking a Christmas break.

Mike Freeze, owner of the 1,000-acre Keo Fish Farm in Lonoke County, said he understood that Arkansas' lawmakers would try to attach their bills to a short-term spending bill, called a continuing resolution, now being drafted in Congress.

"It definitely would be fantastic and a huge help if they can attach it," Freeze said. "Of course, that might just open the bill to all the [other members of Congress] who have their own pet ideas or issues to attach. We'll just have to wait and see, but it is a start."

In an emailed statement, Crawford said, "Cormorants can put an enormous amount of pressure on catfish farmers in the winter months as they travel south, and I've introduced a bill that would allow the birds to be taken in order to reduce depredation. While the bill itself likely won't be considered until next year, I'm hopeful that the Continuing Resolution will include a temporary provision that allows producers to protect their ponds this winter."

In the lawsuit it lost this spring, the Fish and Wildlife Service used data from its 2009 environmental assessment that permitted the killing of cormorants and other wildlife threats to farms for the agency's 2014 reissuance of the depredation orders. The judge in the case rejected the agency's reasoning that it was understaffed and underfunded when it failed to conduct a more thorough, up-to-date environmental assessment of how allowing the killing of cormorants would affect their nationwide population.

Double-crested cormorants migrate south each winter and feed on fish at farms. While a few hundred have arrived already in Arkansas, there will be tens of thousands of them come January, Freeze said.

Crawford's bill "basically reinstates the two orders" halted by Bates' ruling instead of requiring Fish and Wildlife officials to issue permits, on a case-by-case basis, to farmers to kill a limited number of the birds, Freeze said. "We have cormorants here now, but they're few enough in numbers that we can scare most of them off," he added.

Freeze said any legislation would be a temporary fix until the Fish and Wildlife Service conducts a proper environmental assessment.

Business on 12/06/2016

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