The great cormorant has had a good run. Driven to the brink of extinction by hunters and pesticides in the 1970s, the fish-eating waterbird was rescued thanks to one of the EU's earliest environmental laws. On paper, that regulation represents a triumph for conservationists: Over the past 50 years, the cormorant population has grown from roughly 50,000 birds to between 1.5 and 2 million across Europe. But 10 EU countries now consider the aquatic species a menace that needs to be contained. The