The Devil’s Cormorant: A Natural HistoryBehold the cormorant: silent, still, cruciform, and brooding; flashing, soaring, quick as a snake. Evolution has crafted the only creature on Earth that can migrate the length of a continent, dive and hunt deep underwater, perch comfortably on a branch or a wire, walk on land, climb up cliff faces, feed on thousands of different species, and live beside both fresh and salt water in a vast global range of temperatures and altitudes, often in close proximity to man. Long a symbol of gluttony, greed, bad luck, and evil, the cormorant has led a troubled existence in human history, myth, and literature. The birds have been prized as a source of mineral wealth in Peru, hunted to extinction in the Arctic, trained by the Japanese to catch fish, demonized by Milton in Paradise Lost, and reviled, despised, and exterminated by sport and commercial fishermen from Israel to Indianapolis, Toronto to Tierra del Fuego. In The Devil’s Cormorant, Richard King takes us back in time and around the world to show us the history, nature, ecology, and economy of the world’s most misunderstood waterfowl. |
Contents
March | 1 |
1 Gifu City | 3 |
April | 23 |
2 Henderson Harbor | 24 |
May | 48 |
3 Aran Islands | 50 |
June | 70 |
4 South Georgia | 73 |
November | 174 |
9 Belzoni | 175 |
December | 196 |
10 Isla Chincha Centro | 197 |
January | 220 |
11 Cape Town | 221 |
February | 242 |
12 Gates Island | 243 |
July | 92 |
5 East Sand Island | 93 |
August | 115 |
6 Tring | 116 |
September | 133 |
7 Bering Island | 134 |
October | 155 |
8 Galápagos Islands | 157 |
March | 268 |
Acknowledgments | 269 |
Appendix | 271 |
Notes | 275 |
| 325 | |
Permissions Credits | 341 |
| 343 | |
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Common terms and phrases
adults animals Antarctic aquaculture Audubon bank cormorant beak Bering Bering Island biologists Bird Research Northwest blue-eyed shags boat breeding Cape Cape cormorant catch catfish century Chinchas coast colony Columbia River Cormorant Fishing cormorant nests Cormorant Phalacrocorax cormorant population cormorant species cormorant's dive Double-Crested Cormorant East Sand Island eggs European shag extinct farmers feathers feet Fisheries fishermen flightless cormorant Galápagos Gates Island Gifu guanay guanay cormorant guano Guano Rush gulls Ibid IUCN Journal kill Lake Ontario Liam O'Flaherty Little Galloo Island live look Marine McCullough Megan Mississippi morant Museum Nagara River Natural History neck Nelson North America numbers O'Flaherty ornithologist Pacific Pelicans penguins personal communication Peru Peruvian ponds Predation pygmy cormorant Rankin rants rocks Ron Ditch salmon sanccob seabirds ship South Georgia spectacled cormorant Steeby Stejneger Steller swim terns Tring ukai USFWS usho Vonnegut Weseloh Wildlife wings Wounded Cormorant wrote Yamashita York