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| We had been asked by one of our members about predators of Walleyes on the Winnebago system and I in turn asked Adam Nickel what they had been finding: "We now have two years of diet study work for cormorants from Lake Butte des Morts. The results have been interesting, so far the majority of stomachs have had 9-12 inch freshwater drum in them, especially during the early summer months. Once August and September roll around, we have seen their diet shift more towards shad. We have gone through a few hundred stomachs so far and have only seen a handful of yellow perch and walleye, but not many. It seems like cormorants are being opportunistic on the system and focusing on what is most abundant on the system, drum and shad. As for pelicans, we don’t have any actual diet data for system. When it comes to what is the biggest predator for walleyes on the system, I would say humans. The fishing mortality on the system is much more than our the natural mortality estimates, at least for adults." |
