Efforts are being made to reduce double-crested cormorants' consumption of juvenile salmon migrating to the ocean.

On Wednesday, the US Army Corps of Engineers said the plan is to significantly reduce the population of double-crested cormorants nesting on East Sand Island between Oregon and Washington. At these places, cormorants eat millions of juvenile salmon migrating to the ocean.

The island is said to have the biggest double-crested cormorant nesting site in North America. Wildlife control personnel from the US Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services have started to implement the plan.

Bob Winters, program manager for the corps, unveiled that a team of three to four personnel armed with .22-caliber rifles would be killing birds. The programme will continue till August and the goal is to reduce the colony from around 14,000 breeding pairs to 5,600 pairs by 2018.

Conservation Director Bob Sallinger said independent observers should be allowed on the island so that the public can be known how the killings are being carried out. "The idea of turning the largest cormorant colony in the United States into as shooting gallery and killing cormorants on the nest is a low point in terms of recent wildlife management efforts", stated Sallinger.

As per the plan, vegetable oil will also be poured over un-hatched eggs to smother them. Efforts are being made to save young salmon and steelhead. The corps are planning to eliminate around 5,800 nests.

The move has witnessed opposition from conservation groups. Audubon Society and the Wildlife Center of the North Coast have even filed a lawsuit to stop the action. In fact, the groups have suggested that the modifications to the agency's dams on the Columbia River would be more beneficial to salmon.