GENEVA, April 8 A group of cormorants has abused Swiss hospitality by eating too many fish, forcing authorities on Thursday to approve measures aimed at kicking out the unwanted migrants.

The coastal natives used to come to Switzerland on a sporadic basis to escape harsher winters further north, but since 2001, some 260 cormorant couples have nested on two islands on western Switzerland's Lake Neuchatel.

While their permanent residence at the country's biggest natural bird reserve had been greeted with enthusiasm by bird-lovers, their appetite for fish from the lake has provoked the ire of fishermen in the region.

“The cormorant is a bird which does not go unobserved. It nests in colonies, fish often in groups and gather where they sleep,” said the Office for the Environment on its website.

“Opportunistic, it fishes where the fish are visible and easy to catch,” added the office, underlining that “on the lakes, the groups of cormorants are competing with professional fishermen.”

A report in 2008 found that regular fishermen at the lake lost up to 210,000 Swiss francs (147,000 euros) in revenue a year.

To control the population of cormorants, local authorities can now close off access to part of the lake's shoreline, and “remove the residual nests from the previous season.”—AFP