Hello everyone, As we enter into an already busy spring season I wanted to take a few minutes to say thank you to everyone who supported IBRRC during the last year and more recently during the pelican event that we experienced this winter. We enter into spring with a smaller but similar influx of sick … Read more
^Brown Pelican feet suffering from frostbite (IBRRC photo) From Jay Holcomb, IBRRC’s exceutive director: I would like to provide you with an overview of what we know about the recent California Brown Pelican event that began in mid-December 2008 and slowed down in the last week or so. I wish we were able to point … Read more
We have now logged over 460 dead or ill pelicans from Baja California to Astoria, Oregon since mid-December. Some test results have been received, but many results are still pending. More conclusive evidence is expected within a week or two. So far, birds have tested negative for avian influenza and for high levels of domoic … Read more
A New York Times story about the pelican crisis is quoting a state wildlife veterinarian that says the birds were brutalized by Mother Nature’s cold fury. “Pelicans were observed in the middle of that storm and then seen moving south,” said David A. Jessup, senior wildlife veterinarian for the California Department of Fish and Game. … Read more
In 35 years of studying pelicans, Dan Anderson, an avian specialist at UC Davis, says “it will take some detective work” to find out why scores of pelicans are showing thin, disoriented or even dead (photo, right) from Oregon to Baja California. In a story from the Chicago Sun-Times, Anderson, says he’s only seen this … Read more