Brown pelican soars, may be removed from endangered list

Bald eagles have rebounded from near extinction. Striped bass are back in the Chesapeake Bay. Now comes the brown pelican, which the federal government wants to remove completely from its endangered-species list.

The recovery of this quirky, big-billed bird occurred more rapidly in coastal Virginia and North Carolina than in other states, expanding from a handful of nesting pairs in the 1980s to thousands in recent years.

"I saw two at Back Bay" - in Virginia Beach - "in the 1970s, and that was it," said Bob Ake, a longtime bird expert and retired professor from Old Dominion University in Norfolk. "Now, you see them almost everywhere."

Remote sanctuaries of sand and scrub on Virginia's Eastern Shore and on man-made mud islands in North Carolina's seaside estuaries have been hotbeds for this turnaround. Here, the pelicans can gather in colonies and breed in needed seclusion, away from human development and natural predators.

The mid-Atlantic revival was so rapid that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service dropped its endangered status for Virginia and North Carolina's populations in 1985. Last week, the agency proposed a similar end for the remaining coastal states where pelicans congregate - Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, California, Washington and Oregon - as well as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

"The brown pelican is known for its fishing displays, plunging headlong from the air into the water and rising with a mouthful of fish," Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said in announcing the delisting proposal. "In the same dramatic fashion, the pelican has pulled off an amazing recovery after a steep plunge toward extinction."

Like bald eagles, brown pelicans were nearly wiped out by DDT, a highly toxic pesticide. The chemical made eggshells extremely thin, so many large birds could barely reproduce. Their numbers plummeted.

When the government banned DDT in 1972, populations slowly rebuilt themselves - to the point that today, the U.S. pelican census is about 620,000, according to federal estimates.

North Carolina regularly conducts

scientific surveys of its pelicans. In 1977, 82 adult pairs were counted at two roosting sites. In 2004, 5,173 pairs were documented at nine locales, said Susan Cameron, a waterbird biologist with the N.C. Wildlife Resource Commission.

Curiously, though, the numbers have dropped in recent years, Cameron said, to 3,452 pairs at five sites in 2007.

"We're not exactly sure why," she said. "It could be related to their food source" - mostly fish - "but it's something we're definitely keeping an eye on."

A similar phenomenon is happening at Fisherman Island National Wildlife Refuge, on Virginia's Eastern Shore. The refuge was home to the first documented nesting colony in the state, in 1987.

The population there peaked in 2002 with more than 1,000 nests but has slid almost every year since then - to about 250 nests last year, said Pam Denmon, the refuge biologist.

Raccoons are the likely cause, Denmon said.

The masked predators steal and eat pelican eggs, and often destroy the nest during their raids, she said.

"They got into about 200 nests in 2002, and since then, the pelicans have started moving away," Denmon said.

There is a silver lining, though. The birds seem to be relocating to new nesting grounds elsewhere in Virginia. So while the refuge's population is down, the overall state figures continue to rise, as does the number of nesting colonies.

Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries classifies the brown pelican as "a state species of concern." This status provides no legal protection but "basically means we need to keep monitoring them, surveying their trends," said Ruth Boettcher, a department biologist on the Eastern Shore.

The Elizabeth River Project, a Portsmouth-based environmental group, has adopted the brown pelican as its chief symbol. A pelican in flight festoons group literature, T-shirts and logos - a sign that, like the once-threatened bird, the river might too rebound from near death.

Ake, the bird expert and former ODU professor, lives near the Lafayette River, a spur of the Elizabeth River. He sees pelicans all the time, especially in fall and early winter, either flying in a group or just spying for food while perched atop a piling or pier.

Biologists describe the birds as "very mellow," "surprisingly big" and "sort of bizarre," their origins tracing back to prehistory.

They can reach 54 inches in length, weigh between 8 and 10 pounds, and have a wingspan of about 7 feet. Brown pelicans are the smallest of seven pelican species worldwide, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Denmon, the Fisherman Island biologist, said one of the weirdest things about pelicans is the sounds they make, especially the baby chicks.

"They sound almost like dinosaurs, sort of a hissing," she said. "You kind of sit there and hear them and think to yourself, 'What in the world was that?' "

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com