Not many birds get a third chance at life, but N51, a twice-rehabilitated California Brown Pelican, is living proof of resilience in the face of repeated challenges. Nine years after first coming through the doors of International Bird Rescue as a young patient, N51 returned to care during the 2025 Brown Pelican Crisis, which flooded our wildlife centers with over 240 pelicans. Stricken this time by a harmful algal bloom, N51 faced an uphill battle – showing that some birds are built to endure more than we imagine.
The Beginning of N51’s Journey
Way back in January 2016, a young adult male Brown Pelican was found contaminated with oil and rescued by Santa Barbara Harbor Patrol. After two weeks with Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network, he was transferred to Bird Rescue’s Los Angeles Wildlife Center where he was washed. Another 20 days later, he was released with a metal federal band on the right leg and a blue leg band with the code N51 on the left. Over the years, he was spotted a few times here and there along the coast, living his best wild pelican life.
Injuries Due to the Harmful Algal Bloom
Earlier this year, a prolonged harmful algal bloom occurring offshore brought us nearly 100 seabirds with domoic acid toxicity. Domoic acid toxicity causes Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning in people. Half of the birds that tested positive for domoic acid were also positive for a second toxin, saxitoxin, the cause of Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning.
During the bloom, N51 was rescued again on April 18, 2025 in Ventura County – this time with a serious problem with his hocks. Both legs had deeply damaged tissue with dead skin adhered to the bone below, right at an anatomically important spot.
N51, despite not having other signs of toxicity at admission, was likely a victim of the bloom like many of our other pelican patients at the time. Hock wounds like these in pelicans are typically due to the neurologic effects of algal toxins, which can cause them to be too mentally out of it to hold themselves upright, like a person with severe vertigo. To maintain their balance, they strongly push themselves backwards with their legs held wide and straight out, forming a tripod with their tail to avoid falling over. Staying in this posture for very long puts so much pressure onto the bony prominences of the hock joints that it can kill the tissue over the bone.
Pelican legs have a bony knob just below the hock joint where a really important tendon attaches, the equivalent of where our Achilles tendon attaches to our heel. If the tendon becomes detached from its bony knob or is too damaged to bear the forces of muscle contraction and it ruptures, a bird will become unable to stand. In the case of a wild bird, this injury holds a very poor prognosis for recovery.
Careful Steps Towards Recovery
Both of N51’s hock tendons at their bony knobs were at severe risk of not only rupture and detachment, but there was also a high risk of infection of the joints themselves due to so much dead tissue present adjacent to the joints. Dead tissue has no defense against decay or bacterial invasion and thus merits removal in most cases.
We initially bandaged N51’s hocks with a hydrating dressing to soften the dead tissue before surgically removing it on April 28. After seeing what was going on underneath the dead skin, I was afraid the tendons were going to rupture just from the simple movements involved in standing up. I made the decision to house him in one of our soft-sided net-bottom pens, with his worse right leg splinted to keep him from flexing or extending the joint for two weeks, to give it a chance to start healing.
The wounds were dressed every or every other day, and slowly but surely, they healed really well. By the end of two weeks, the wounds had made substantial progress, enough to get him standing up again. By May 25, he was ready to get back out in an aviary with access to a pool, albeit still with dressings on his hocks. Interestingly, his right hock, which had been more severe initially, healed faster than his left, perhaps because it was immobilized initially. By June 22, he had made enough progress to discontinue the dressings and all of his medications too.
Part II Coming Soon: N51 was eating well and healing, but he wouldn’t fly. Diagnostics showed nothing physically wrong. How did this determined pelican finally take to the skies? Stay tuned for the incredible next chapter of his journey!