The Devil's Cormorant: A Natural History

by Richard J. King

Looks at the history, nature, ecology and economy of the cormorant, which the author argues is the world's most misunderstood waterfowl.

Genres: Birds, Nonfiction, Natural History, Nature, Biology, History

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Richard J. King is the author most recently of Sailing Alone: a History and Ocean Bestiary: Meeting Marine Life from Abalone to Orca to Zooplankton. He is also the author Ahab's Rolling Sea: A Natural History of Moby-Dick, Lobster, The Devil's Cormorant: A Natural History, and Meeting Tom Brady. King has published widely on maritime topics in scholarly and popular magazines. Read more at http://richardjking.info.

Reviews

[Sher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this book is all about cormorants- their natural history and how they are appreciated and reviled throughout the world in both culture and art - form, this book, in the end, for me is mostly about humankind. How we treat the cormorants says much, if not all about us. Well researched a perfect book for a humanities person as it includes a variety of lenses through which the cormorant is seen including short essays, poetry, story, and tales of greed both from the bird an the human. Can this bird continue to thrive alongside humanity?

[Rachel Bea · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Matt Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love a cormorant, snakey creepy flappy things and this book has some stinking great facts about cormorants and their history alongside mankind - loved the bits about the human history of fishing with cormorants, the antagonism with fishermen, the history of birds v man, and some really jaw dropping details about guano caves, wars, art and various other bits and bobs. Got a little repetive and long winded towards the end but - engaging writing style otherwise. On the whole, loved it.

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was Fantastic! I’m usually not one to read books about history, as most often I find historical accounts boring. I’m pleasantly surprised though to find that this book manages to bring together history, culture, science and insight, with a bit of comedic flair to dissect and explore our relationship with these feathered outcasts aka the cormorants.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 4 out of 5]

"...with cormorants, across cultures and across time, ...in almost every case our problem with cormorants has been the direct result of our own busy, heavy hand. This is exemplary of so many of our interactions with the natural world."

A hefty, if not exhaustive, attempt to explore the natural history of cormorants around the world and humanity's consistent distrust and hatred of cormorants. From ancient traditions, to modern research; from literature to explorer's notebooks; from personal experience to interviews with experts and cormorant killing scumbags from around the globe--this book is a major achievement and should be read. To bad it didn't "go viral" when it came out so we could get a cultural conversation going and change some minds.

The most striking thing is how the stereotype of cormorants as morally degenerate gluttons who eat all the fish has persisted across cultures and countries and time with no corresponding scientific evidence. That's called prejudice.

King visited the Columbia River before they started killing cormorants--which he predicted they would begin in the last chapter of this book.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cormorants are much-maligned birds with an ability to perform feats that are rather hard to credit: migrations across thousands of kilometres or swooping dives through air and water that can take them down to a depth of nearly 50 metres. Dark and vaguely sinister in appearance, they have been damned often over the years as agents of Satan, except when they were praised by sailors for their ability to mark the nearness of the shore. Trusting, gullible and daring in equal measures, they often come to close to humankind and suffer all manner of indignities as a result.

King's book is a sweep across history and literature, as well as his own visits to the cormorant fishermen of Gifu and various parts of the world where cormorants congregate to fish or to be slaughtered by irate fish farmers. It is a labour of love and one in which he shows a scholarly bent that mixes with a near-obsession. Cormorants throughout history have elicited repulsion and grudging admiration, here King finds an unlikely warm tone with which he ranges over this bird's vast earthly dominion to give it a voice that is more multi-faceted than the one it has had until now.

[Bob Stocker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Depending on whose taxonomy you favor, there are about forty species of cormorants. Cormorants live on every continent near both fresh and salt water and eat only live fish – which they are particularly well adapted to catch. In Japan and some other Asian countries trained cormorants are used to catch fish for humans. In other countries including the United States and Canada they are scapegoated for declining fish populations and slaughtered as pests. Cormorants are smart and adaptable: Fish farmers are still searching for effective ways to keep cormorants from their ponds. Many people are dismayed because excrement from cormorant colonies kills roosting trees and surrounding vegetation. In Peru cormorants are protected because cormorant guano is exported as organic fertilizer. Richard King traveled the world to research The Devil's Cormorant: A Natural History. Each chapter describes in detail some aspect of how we humans relate to these fascinating, paradoxical birds. The result is an interesting study of both cormorants and humans.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard King has written an engaging account of the natural history of cormorants. He describes the skills of these birds and some of their unusual behaviors, such as how they spread their wings to dry. He addresses why this particular bird tends to be so unloved in literature and in wildlife management practices compared to more "attractive" seabirds.

King is a senior lecturer in literature of the sea with the Maritime Studies Program of Williams College and Mystic Seaport. His combination of writing, interviewing, and biological research skills makes this an unusually accessible natural history book, even for readers not yet acquainted with this very interesting bird. The final chapter does an outstanding job of distilling all that comes before it.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't have told you what a cormorant was before picking up this book, but I like microhistories about obscure, rarely covered yet ubiquitous subjects (see Mark Kurlansky's "Cod" and Tom Standage's "A History of the World in Six Glasses"). This book is a beautiful ode to the cormorant bird, anthromorphically maligned in literature, revered by the Japanese, target of genocide by US fishermen, rare specimen to ornithologists, canary in the coal mine to evolutionary biologists.

[Liza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yay good book by my professor!

[Kevin Payne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some interesting information on how the bird has been unfairly vilified over the years, mainly for its reputation for gluttony. Gave more detail then I needed about all aspects of the bird.