The black, hook-billed birds fish very aggressively and visibly, and they're easy to blame when fisheries go bad. This spring, about 500 were killed on Little Charity Island in Saginaw Bay, the second major slaughter in as many years on a Great Lakes island. No one has caught the vicious fools who did it, but they're obviously people without a synapse to spare for concepts such as invasive species, marsh destruction, storm water runoff and other factors that affect fish. A management plan is being written for cormorants, but control measures ought to be a last resort. Cormorants are getting misplaced blame, and even minor human intervention such as egg-shaking disrupts other nesting birds.
Wild animals ask little of humans beyond some undeveloped places where they can be left alone.
Unfortunately, leaving things alone is not exactly human nature.