FISHPOND owners have threatened to chop down trees and destroy nests inside and around the Mai Po nature reserve if the authorities fail to protect their fish from being eaten by the migratory birds.
The fishermen claim they all lose hundreds of thousands of dollars annually because cormorants flocking to Mai Po marshes for winter eat their fish.
Although most of the cormorants are not expected to arrive in Mai Po until the New Year, several thousand have already landed.
Yesterday the Agriculture and Fisheries Department and the World Wide Fund for Nature started a three-day pilot test of throwing nets across one of the ponds. But it failed to dispel the fishermen's anger and concern.
The nets, in small pieces which hang one metre above the water, do not cover the whole pond. They are intended to make it difficult for the birds to land.
Kwok Chi-yau, chairman of the 400 member-strong New Territories Poultry Society, said he did not expect the nets would be of any help because similar methods had been tried before by individual operators.
