Natural History
In 2010, the estimate of cormorant population, considered a nuisance, ranged from 14,000 to 16,000. A Fish and Wildlife commissioner said that the ideal population would be 3,300 or about 3 per 1 square kilometre (0.39 sq mi). Cormorants had disappeared from the lake (and all northern lakes) due to the use of DDT in the 1940s and 1950s.
Ring-billed gulls are also considered a nuisance. Measures have been taken to reduce their population. Authorities are attempting to encourage the return of black crowned night herons, cattle egrets, great blue herons, which disappeared during the time DDT was being used.
Read more about this topic: Lake Champlain
Famous quotes containing the words natural and/or history:
“I consider it equal injustice to set our heart against natural pleasures and to set our heart too much on them. We should neither pursue them, nor flee them; we should accept them.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)