Double-crested cormorants are proliferating on the Toronto Islands, where their guano can quickly destroy trees.
The number of double-crested cormorants on Centre Island has more than doubled this summer, and it began with a renoviction by a pair of eagles.
The first bald eagles in Toronto’s recorded history arrived on Centre Island last winter, while the cormorants, which conservation authorities have been trying to keep off the islands because their acidic guano can rapidly kill trees, were basking in the sun in the southern U.S., their winter home.
To a bald eagle, the south flank of Centre Island in February must have seemed perfect. No humans, a great tree canopy, a lake full of fish and a wide selection of empty starter nests to choose from.
The cormorant nest that the eagles took over was too small for their growing family, so the feathered couple — eagles mate for life — set to work expanding their new home, to about five feet wide and four feet deep.
“They renovated it,” said Karen McDonald, senior manager of ecosystem management at the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA). “They needed something much bigger.”
Above: The cormorant population on the Toronto Islands more than doubled this summer, to 2,000, from 900 last year.
The arrival of eagles in Toronto has been celebrated and hailed as a sign of a healthy ecosystem, but it has resulted in one unhappy consequence.
The TRCA, which has been trying to move the cormorants off the islands and back to their original home in Tommy Thompson Park on the Leslie Street Spit, had to moderate their efforts on the islands this spring so as not to disturb the eagles, whose nest is now in the middle of the cormorant colony.
“When the eagles were discovered, we had to pivot,” said McDonald.
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