Big billed bird bounces back - November 12, 2009
The brown pelican has been officially declared recovered by the US government, and the species will no longer be listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Pelecanus occidentalis was devastated by DDT use in the 1940s and 50s. Yesterday though the US Fish and Wildlife Service removed the animal’s endangered status, announcing there are now over 650,000 brown pelicans in the US, the Caribbean and Latin America.
“At a time when so many species of wildlife are threatened, we once in a while have an opportunity to celebrate an amazing success story,” says Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar (press release). “Today is such a day. The brown pelican is back!”
The FWS notes that pelicans have survived not only DDT – as famously described by Rachel Carson in Silent Spring – but also a 19th century craze for using their feathers in women’s hats and slaughter by fishermen who accused them of taking their fish.
The Service also reminds us of Dixon Lanier Merritt’s poem:
A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belly can,
He can take in his beak
Enough food for a week,
But I’m damned if I see how the hell he can.
Image: FWS
