If you have seen sick or dead pelicans, IBRRC is asking that you contact WildCare at or 41 or your nearest wildlife rehabilitation center for instructions. International Bird Rescue Research Center is gathering information for this event. Testing for other diseases is still continuing through the United States Geologic Survey In Madison, Wisconsin, the California State Laboratory, and by Dave Jessup with the California Department of Fish and Game. Poor weather, and perhaps nutrition, as they migrated out of the northwest, may have made them susceptible to other environmental insults, including even low toxin levels in their food chain. Ornithologists suggest the most plausible scenario still appears to be that exposure to adverse weather conditions has impacted the birds because they stayed very late in the northwest this year. Data continues to support the conjecture that Domoic Acid is playing a secondary, not primary, role in the present Brown Pelican mortality event. Four were positive for Domoic Acid, but not at the high levels that we have seen during previous years during very toxic DA events. The Caron Laboratory of the Marine Environmental Biology Department at the University of Southern California tested eighteen Brown Pelicans during the week of January 12. Following is an update written for the California Council for Wildlife Rehabilitators on the subject of Domoic Acid poisoning and the current "event" of pelican mortality.Īrticle for the California Council for Wildlife Rehabilitatorsīy Susan Kaveggia and Dr. A primary concern is the diminishment of herring and smelt food stocks, but other theories discuss cold weather, disrupted migration patterns and the possiblity of Domoic Acid poisoning. While no one is sure what is causing the birds to crash land, and in many cases die, scientists and veterinarians have some theories. The International Bird Rescue and Rehabilitation Center (IBRRC) in Fairfield notes that, although mortality rates for young Brown Pelicans are normally high in January, this problem seems to be affecting a disproportionate number of adult birds, those animals most important to the future success of the species. State biologists have reported hundreds of birds, again primarily in Southern California, in this bruised and disoriented state. While WildCare's hospital has not admitted any pelicans found in these circumstances, we are nonetheless concerned that something is affecting the birds. According to a Los Angeles Times article on January 6, 2009, "disoriented and bruised California Brown Pelicans are landing on highways and airport runways and in farm fields, alleys and backyards miles from their normal coastal haunts." Pelicans may find themselves competing with fishermen for dwindling fish stocks, which could mean trouble for the birds.īrown Pelicans face other troubles, despite their population's recovery. WildCare has been hearing reports - primarily from Southern California - of a disturbing "event" happening to these birds. However, the delisting comes at a time when the populations of the main food sources of Brown Pelicans, herring and smelt, are crashing. This is fabulous news because it means the recovery program set out for Brown Pelicans succeeded! This population can be held up as an example of a successful recovery program in our state. This is the first species that has been officially delisted in California. No longer considered threatened, the Brown Pelican population has recovered from the effects of DDT and other environmental toxins that sent them to the brink of extinction. Just last week they were officially delisted from the Endangered Species Act in California. It has been a busy month for California Brown Pelicans.
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