The Perils of the Pelican

Originally published in Great Falls Tribune May 27, 2010
by Michael Babcock
Original link: http://bit.ly/htxKOx

(blogmasters note: this article was published in 2010, but it's a good example of the perils that migratory birds face across their range)

Pity the pelican: misunderstood and wrongly accused of taking a bite out of trout numbers in Montana and here on the Missouri River.

Each spring the carcasses begin showing up in the river after the vandals start shooting.

Folks who live on the river between Cascade and Holter Lake call to let us know that the mayhem has begun. One here, another there, three or four there. All summer long the calls will continue.



Why shoot a pelican? Well, some people believe they eat enough trout to threaten the population. Not likely: pelicans have been here for years and the trout population on the Missouri is well within the long-term averages.

"Pelicans are a big white target, easy to kill and they eat fish," said Bob Johnson, deputy director at Benton Lake National Wildlife Refuge. "But it is the brown pelican that dives into the water. White pelicans — the kind we have here — can only reach as far into the water as their bills will let them.

"If a person is fishing and they play a trout and they play it and play it and it gets tired and it is near the top of the water, a pelican is going to take it. They are predators and they are opportunists," Johnson said.

Otherwise, the trout likely can escape the pelican.

In North Dakota, a study of pelicans found that the majority of their diets was salamanders, Johnson says.

The Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks website "field guide" says that pelicans are not a major predator of trout. While the diet at the four Montana colonies of white pelican has not been studied, "observations of prey remains at the Medicine Lake colony include carp, fathead minnow, suckers, northern pike, goldeye, sturgeon and adult and larval tiger salamanders."

At Canyon Ferry and Arod lakes, observers saw pelicans eating non-game fish including suckers, carp and bullheads.

There are breeding colonies of white pelicans at Medicine Lake and Bowdoin and those pelicans mostly are connected to the Central Flyway. Most of them fly south and east to the Gulf of Mexico coast and southern Midwest. Birds at Arod Lakes and Canyon Ferry mostly cross the Continental Divide and fly west and south to southern Idaho, California and western Mexico.

"While each of the Montana breeding colonies is protected to some degree from predators, human disturbance, and water level fluctuations (each occurs on federal refuges or state management areas), they are vulnerable in winter to shooting and disease," the FWP website says. "These two factors accounted for 21 percent to 47 percent of band recoveries for the Arod Lakes, Bowdoin, and Canyon Ferry colonies. Botulism also leads to the death of several hundred adults and young at the Medicine Lake colony during outbreak years, and severe weather during the breeding season can contribute to significant mortality at colonies, especially if breeding adults are killed."

Shazam! Not every pelican dies from a gunshot wound and not every pelican eats nothing but trout.

White pelicans are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 like just about every other bird. Too bad it takes an act of Congress to protect our birds and wildlife.

Anybody who can read or has a television should know by now that we don't shoot nongame birds and animals.

Still, there are some out there who just don't get it.

"It's an annual problem: People just like to whack stuff," says Johnson. "They shoot our signs, too."