Greedy Cormorant

Three: I address the cormorant’s alleged greed, reflecting on the etymological associations of the bird’s name and discussing a range of contexts, from medieval to contemporary, in which the cormorant’s greed becomes a cultural trope. I then outline scientific debates over the bird’s recovery from persecution, numerical resurgence and impact on fish stocks, noting the ways in which zoologists address the bird’s consumption of fish and assessing whether or not it is reasonable to describe the cormorant as ‘greedy’. I conclude by turning away from the consuming cormorant to the cormorant consumed, reflecting on the curious cultural associations, not least in respect of the cultural meanings of blackness, apparent in the history and politics (not to mention the weirdness) of the culinary cormorant.