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The Food Consumed by Shags and Cormorants around the Shores of Cornwall (England)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2009

G. A. Steven
G. A. Steven
Affiliation:
Assistant Naturalist at the Plymouth Laboratory.
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Extract

1. 188 Shags and 27 Cormorants, which had been feeding around the shores of Cornwall and whose stomachs contained identifiable food organisms, have been examined.

2. The Shags were found to have been feeding principally upon Sand Eels (Ammodytes spp.), and other non-marketable fishes.

3. The proportion of flatfishes and other economic species which had been devoured by the Shags was negligible.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , August 1933 , pp. 277 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1933

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References

page 281 note * See also Appendix II, p. 291.

page 281 note † Remarkably large numbers of otoliths (up to 73) frequently were found in the stomachs. Possibly they accumulate and are used for breaking up the food in somewhat the same way as fowls and pigeons use small pebbles.

page 286 note * See Table III.

page 286 note † See p. 280.

page 288 note * Presumably obtained from various parts of the country, although no details are given.

page 288 note † See footnote, p. 292.

page 288 note ‡ Several of the stomachs examined by the present writer contained Shrimps, Prawns, etc., which could not possibly have been derived from the stomachs of fishes eaten.

page 289 note * Still another factor operates to convey an exaggerated impression of their depredations among flatfish. Because of their shape, flats are difficult fishes to swallow. A bird's efforts to dispose of a large individual, therefore, often attracts the attention of onlookers, whereas ordinary round fishes are swallowed too quickly and easily to be seen and recognised except on very rare occasions.

page 290 note * These numbers are not absolutely constant.

page 291 note * See also Witherby's “Handbook.”

page 291 note † See p. 280.

page 292 note * The accuracy obtainable is never such as to justify expressing the results correct to two places of decimals (see p. 288).