Cormorants

(2 Minute Read. 12Jun2024)

Cormorant

A striking pair of quite unusual water birds has shown up on the lake where we are camping. They are neither ducks nor geese nor swans nor fish hawks. What else could they be?

They are cormorants. The bird may be familiar to vintage car enthusiasts because the Packard hood ornament was a cormorant.

The cormorant is one of the Great Creator‘s most amazing birds. It has webbed feet, a sharply hooked bill, keen underwater vision, and a streamlined body for swimming underwater. Cormorants dive as deep as 150 feet to get fish. When fitted with tiny video cameras, some have been filmed diving 260 feet below the surface. They propel themselves very rapidly under water with their feet and wings.

Cormorants dive under water to get fish and can swallow small fish while underwater. Large fish are brought to the surface. The cormorant typically has hold of a large fish by the side. The bird shakes its head to flip the fish around to swallow it head first.

The Great Creator has built these creatures with some unusual design features to facilitate their nourishment. As Matthew 6:26 asserts, “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.”

Cormorants are medium-to-large birds weighing up to 11 pounds with a wing span of up to 39 inches. The cormorant has a throat pouch like that of the pelican for holding captured fish.

Cormorants swallow large fish whole.
The neck expands as the fish goes down.

Cormorants have a voracious appetite. An adult will eat a pound of fish a day. As a result they are despised by fishermen who blame them for ruining fishing grounds. The sportfishing industry considers them a menace and wants federal and state officials to get their numbers under control.

Michigan is home to 55 percent of the cormorant breeding pairs in the US. A 1997 survey reported about 28,000 pairs around Lake Michigan and about 8,500 pairs around Lake Huron.

In 2022, Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources said, “Cormorants eat tens of millions of pounds of fish a year in Michigan and are especially lethal at fish stocking sites.” Some cormorants have learned to recognize fish-stocking trucks, and they gorge themselves on the newly stocked fish.

Chinese fisherman with his cormorants

Cormorant fishing is a method in which trained cormorants are used to catch fish. It was once common in China, Japan, Greece, Egypt, Peru, Korea, India, England, and France. Fishermen tie a loose cord near the base of the bird’s throat. The bird can swallow small fish, but can’t swallow large fish. When a cormorant has caught a fish, the fisherman brings the bird back and collects the fish from the bird’s gullet pouch by shaking the bird over a bowl until it spits out the fish.

Cormorants are even mentioned in the Bible. They are classed as unclean and the Israelites were forbidden to eat the birds. (Leviticus 11:13-17; Deuteronomy 14:11-17)

Yet cormorants along with all creation are agents of glorifying their amazing Great Creator.
Praise the Lord from the earth…
Creeping things and winged fowl;
Kings of the earth and all peoples;
Let them praise the name of the Lord,
For His name alone is exalted;
His glory is above earth and heaven. (Psalm 148:7a,10b,11a,13)

Questions to Ponder

1. Have you ever seen a cormorant? What was your reaction?
2. What will you choose today to lift up the name of the Lord as in Psalm 148?

Share your thoughts on these questions in the comments below. It could encourage or help another reader.

For Christ and His Kingdom.
Alere Flammam Veritatis.
Soli Deo Gloria.

Subscribe – Don’t miss future blog posts!
Click the sidebar’s “SUBSCRIBE” button to follow the
Bible-Science Guy Blog. You’ll automatically receive
new posts free by email. Click SUBSCRIBE NOW!

Click Best of Bible-Science Guy for lists of the best Bible-Science Guy posts of each year.
Click Bible-Science Guy Table of Contents for a list of all blog posts starting in October 2007.

©William T. Pelletier, Ph.D.
“contending earnestly for the faith”
“destroying speculations against the knowledge of God”
“for the defense of the gospel”
(Jude 1:3; 2 Cor 10:5; Phil 1:16)
Wednesday, June 12, 2024 A.D.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2)

Disclaimer: BibleScienceGuy has no control over any advertising that may appear and receives no payment or consideration for it. Ads & “Related” links come from WordPress, not from BibleScienceGuy.