Cost Effectiveness of Egg Oiling Versus Culling for Reducing Fish Consumption by Double-crested Cormorants in Lac La Biche, Alberta
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Increasing populations of Double-crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) throughout North America have had a significant impact on fish resources in areas where they breed. A simple Excel model was used to assess the effectiveness of lethal control methods in reducing fish consumed by a breeding population of cormorants. Egg oiling was found to reduce seasonal fish consumption by an average of 504 ± 75 (SD) metric tonnes (N = 3) while culling reduced consumption by 280 ± 205 (SD) tons (N = 3). Cost-effectiveness of each method was also assessed using values from a control program in Lac La Biche, Alberta, Canada. Egg oiling cost an average of CDN$5.26 ± 0.84 (SD; N = 3) for each ton of fish saved from consumption by cormorants and culling cost $36.14 ± 8.90 (SD; N = 3). While culling alone is capable of controlling consumption by adult and young-of-the-year cormorants, egg oiling provides a practical and cost-effective alternative for management of ground-nesting cormorants when used in combination or when culling is not available as a management option.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".