But it’s still too soon to say how far the current crash is spread across California.Please follow the instructions below. State officials expect to have more answers in the next few days about what is happening to the brown pelican.īergeron said that sometimes rehabilitated birds are released hundreds of miles from where they were found to give them a chance to thrive in a new habitat. By 2009, the population soared and the bird was taken off the endangered species list. In 1970, just one pelican chick was successfully born in captivity on the island, and that same year the federal government listed the bird as an endangered species.Ĭonservation efforts, and the ban of DDT, helped the bird’s population rebound, and by 1985 researchers counted nearly 6,500 newborn pelicans at Anacapa Island. The now-banned pesticide DDT weakened the birds’ eggshells, making them so brittle that nesting mothers would crush them.Īnacapa Island in Ventura County is one of the birds’ main roosting sites in the United States. Nearly 60 years ago, the California brown pelican was on the brink of extinction. McGuire and others consider the usual culprits that cause injuries among birds, such as paralytic shellfish poisoning and domoic acid toxins from algae blooms. There is a steady trickle of birds from across Southern California being brought to rescue centers like the one in Orange County. A lot of them have fishing gear entanglement and others are coming in with low body weight and poor body conditions.” “We’re feeding them, deworming them and making sure they’re taken care of. “About 40%, maybe more, are not making it past that first hour when they come in,” McGuire said. About 36 birds have been brought to the center since Monday, but only about 20 have survived. More than three dozen birds have been brought to the nonprofit Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach over the last few days, said the center’s executive director, Debbie McGuire. Until information on cause of death is available, we are unable to provide a likely cause of this problem.” “We are working quickly to receive some carcasses so we can perform necropsies at the department’s Marine Wildlife Veterinary Care and Research Center and the Wildlife Health Laboratory. “CDFW is aware of reports of an increased number of sick and dying brown pelicans in Southern California,” Fish and Wildlife spokesperson Tim Daly said in a statement. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife will be performing tests on the dead birds in the coming days. Some early theories are that the birds are being hurt by overfishing in the Pacific Ocean, but rescue operators have been assured by state agencies that local sardine and anchovy populations are not scarce. Sick birds, too weak to fly, are being found with various injuries and too little body fat, officials said. This is the seabird in the ocean bringing a message that things are not quite right,” International Bird Rescue Chief Executive JD Bergeron said Thursday. “They talk about the canary in the coal mine. Typically, such facilities take in a few birds for rehabilitation, but the volume of sick and dying birds over the last several days is alarming veterinarians. Some birds are brought to the center from as far north as Santa Barbara and as far south as San Diego. More than a hundred birds are being treated at the nonprofit International Bird Rescue’s center in San Pedro in Los Angeles County. There is no clear answer as to why so many birds are sick and dying, and state officials are scrambling to perform tests on dead birds to provide some clarity. Some of these large birds - known for their distinctive oversize bills - arrive with fractures, likely hit by cars, while others have multiple fish hooks and fishing lines tangled around their bodies, officials said. Hundreds of sick and dying California brown pelicans have recently been found across the region and are now being treated at various rescue centers along the coast, officials said.
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