Romania has requested derogation from the European authorities to reduce the cormorant population, because it affects the fish industry, and expects the response, Minister of Agriculture Petre Daea said for TVR 1 public television on Tuesday.
The minister said that there are 100,000 cormorants in Romania and that the number of cormorants should not exceed several thousand.
Daea argued that at European level the cormorants make damages of 300,000 tons of fish, the population being of 2 million cormorants, and that most countries have requested one or more derogations to reduce their number.
The issue of cormorants and their impact on the fish industry was discussed at the Spring European Council, given that those birds eat a larger quantity of fish than the annual fish production of France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Hungary and the Czech Republic together.