The ministry opposes an expansion of culling the birds, and favors controlling them by oiling their eggs instead.

Cormorants consume a large share of Estonia's fish stocks, while their numbers continue to grow. According to Estonia's fisheries councils, simply oiling eggs is no longer sufficient to contain the problem.

"The latest census data show that the cormorant population in Estonia exceeds 47,000 breeding pairs. And if we have agreed in the cormorant management action plan that Estonia's tolerance limit would be up to 10,000 pairs, then clearly this is more than four times the permitted level. But unfortunately, all kinds of data show that it grows by ten percent every year, meaning that oiling no longer produces results today," said Esta Tamm, head of the Gulf of Riga fisheries council.

As things stand, cormorant culling season runs August to November. The fisheries council proposes an extension to the end of March, that is, until the start of the nesting season.

"Our proposal would be that the hunting period should run until the beginning of the nesting season. Another thing is certainly that we should be able to hunt them in protected areas, where this is currently prohibited, because most of the cormorant population and nesting sites — if we also look around Kihnu — are located in protected areas," Tamm said.

Also, the fisheries councils believe that the Ministry of Climate should support classifying the cormorant as a cullaböe bird across Europe and that hunters should be paid a so-called beak bounty, as this would provide greater motivation to hunt.

Kihnu hunter Evald Lilles believes that both extending the hunting season and paying support would help.

"The hunters' proposal would certainly be that those islets that were placed under protection, where they nest, should be removed from protection, because fish stocks in fisheries are so low that industrial fishing around Kihnu, for example, is no longer possible, because there is no fish left," Lilles said.

The Ministry of Climate found that neither extending the hunting period nor a beak bounty would be effective, because the bird is difficult to hunt. The ministry considers oiling cormorant eggs more effective, a measure that has been carried out over the past three years.

"With egg oiling, which has produced results in other countries, you have to be patient and consistent. We may also be somewhat too hasty in drawing conclusions here, because within three years we actually cannot yet see any results, as those results will only become apparent years later," said Aimar Rakko, head of the hunting field at the Ministry of Climate.

Hunting cormorants in protected areas is prohibited in order to protect other birds nesting there too, meaning allowing hunting in protected areas is not foreseeable in the near future, Rakko said.

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