Nov 11 2009
Hurrah the Brown Pelican!
I am so excited! I almost never get to post positive environmental things on this blog. So it is with incredible glee I post this:
Brown pelican removed from endangered species list
A century-long effort to protect the bird is no longer needed, federal officials say. The brown pelican population, once imperiled by hunters and DDT, has reached more than 650,000 in North America.
…
The Interior Department reported today that the brown pelican population has swelled to more than 650,000 throughout North and Central America, a recovery that they attribute largely to a federal ban on DDT imposed in 1972. Pelican populations in Florida and along the Atlantic Coast were removed from the endangered list in the mid-1980s. Today’s announcement removes the entire national population from the list.
Hurrah!
Related posts:
I did a term paper comparing the endangerment of the Brown Pelican to that of the California Condor in fifth grade. Fascinating stuff, especially the concentration of DDT up the food chain, and the indirect effect it had on the pelican population.
Sadly, the Condor’s problems are a harder fix… mostly habitat encroachment. Even where they thought they were protecting habitats, nearby development caused noise etc. that suppressed breeding.
Fortunately captive breeding programs have been really successful, and they’re back into the triple digits of birds… but it’s still a bad situation.
Glad to hear about the brown pelican, though.
We can occasionally get things right!
This is great news, L, thanks for sharing it around! I remember when we sailed through the SF Bay last summer being surprised at all the pelicans. I truly did not remember them being present during my 70s/80s childhood in SF, and wasn’t sure if that was memory tricks or something just like this. I’m pleased as punch to know they have recovered!
Behan