Brown Pelicans Not Coming To California; Weather May Be To Blame - KCOY Santa Maria, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo - News

Brown Pelicans Not Coming To California; Weather May Be To Blame

02.02.10

ASTORIA, OREGON - Something odd is going on along the coast.

Hundreds of hungry Brown Pelicans have been spending more time on the Oregon Coast, rather than the California Coast.

California's temperamental weather may be playing a major role in that.

Historically, Brown Pelicans arrive on the Oregon Coast in the Spring and then head south to California by October or November.

But this year, many of the birds have been found starved to death on Oregon Beaches.

With stormy weather, food sources have become increasingly scarce out in the wild.

Sharnelle Fee, Director of the Wildlife Center in Astoria, Oregon has helped capture injured or emaciated birds.

She and her team are rehabilitating the birds. She says it can take weeks to fully resuscitate the them: "These guys are in rehab. We feed them so that they know we're not a danger to them."

She says as long as the Pelicans can get, or continue to get, food, they will likely stay in Oregon the rest of the Winter and not continue their natural migration to California.

Fee has hope that more healthy Brown Pelicans are in the wild and that she is only seeing the negatively impacted birds: "We know there are healthy one's out there that are hunting. (on camera.) We've had a few birds come in that were broken because of heavy surf."

Fee and her team plan on releasing the injured birds back to the wild when they are healthy, but it's unknown if they will make the long journey south to California.

At a time of year when the Brown Pelicans should be in California, an estimated 1,000 of the birds have remained on Oregon's Coast; that is a once unheard of number.

About 50 birds have died and Wildlife Officials believe that number will only escalate.

Still, Pelican die-offs are not uncommon. A Seabird Biologist from the University of Washington warns it may be too soon to decide whether this Brown Pelican die-off is a "big story, or just a blip on the radar screen." Until then, it depends on California's Winter Weather.