Transcript Killer Whales

Brown pelican
By Aye’Jay Custard
Description
Identification Tips:
Length: 41 inches
Wingspan: 90 inches
Sexes similar
Huge, dark bird
Long bill with a pouch,
dark on Atlantic/Gulf
coasts; bill paler along
Pacific coast, becomes
season.
Flies with neck tucked.
Plunges from great
heights into water to
catch fish .
Brown pelicans fly close to
the water.
*ORDER PELECANIFORMES — Full-webbed Swimmers (Pelicans and
allies), herons, ibis — 9 families; 159 species
Range: worldwide oceans and lakes
Morphology/ecology: large fish-eating birds; totipalmate feet (webs
connect all four toes); bare distendible gular pouch; some capture fish
by aerial diving (bobbies, pelicans) other by swimming (cormorants)
Behavior: chicks are altricial (naked and blind; baby pelicans are ugly!)
except for tropicbirds; some white pelicans fish cooperatively by
forming a net of birds
Other notes: cormorants used by people in Asia to catch fish
Taxonomic notes: two familys formerly with storks (herons, ibis) have been
moved here
Important families:
*Pelicanidae: pelicans - huge pouched beaks for fishing
*Phalacrocoracidae: cormorants - catch fish swimming under water
*Sulidae: boobies - dive to catch fish
*Fregatidae: frigatebirds - pirates that steal food from other birds
*Ardeidae: herons - long necked marsh birds
*Threskiornithidae: ibis & spoonbills - marsh birds with interesting beaks
Feeding
When feeding, pelicans soar in the air
looking for fish near the surface of the
water. When a fish is spotted, the pelican
goes into a dive, plunging 30 to 60 feet billfirst into the water. The impact of hitting the
water would kill an ordinary bird, but the
pelican is equipped with air sacs just
beneath the skin to cushion the blow.
Feeding
The loose skin on the underside of the bill
extends to form a scoop net with an amazing
capacity of 2.5 gallons. The pelican drains the
water from its pouch and tosses its head back
to swallow the fish. Their diet consists of
menhaden and mullet fish. They lay 2 to 4
white eggs during breeding season, and live
up to 30 years or more. Young pelicans are fed
for about 9 weeks. During this time, each
nestling will eat about 150 pounds of fish.
Interesting facts

As recently as the early 1970s,
Brown Pelican was seriously
endangered.
Habitat

The Brown Pelican
lives near the ground
and builds its nest in
weeds . It lives around
the Gulf Coast and is
extremely rare.
GULF OF MEXICO OIL SPILL
 Hounded by hunters and fishermen, driven
to near-extinction by chemical pollution,
the brown pelican has survived a century of
human abuse -- only to face another
challenge from the giant Gulf of Mexico
Spill threatening to devastate its marine
environment.
GULF OF MEXICO OIL SPILL
 The odd-looking seabird with a distinctive
pouch beneath its foot-long bill was
removed from the federal endangered
species list only last November. Now its
recovery could be undermined by millions
of gallons of oil polluting the Gulf since an
April 20 rig explosion.
GULF OF MEXICO Oil SPILL
 So far, no brown pelicans are known to have
died from causes related to the spill. That's
likely to change if the oil fouls their nesting
and feeding grounds along coastal and
barrier islands, officials with the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service say.
GUIL OF MEXICO OIL SPILL
 Officials say they don't know the death toll
from the spill, although state wildlife
veterinarian James LaCour said 10 oilsoaked bird carcasses have been found in
Louisiana. A total of 154 sea turtles, most
identified as the endangered Kemp's ridley
variety, and 12 dolphins have washed
ashore in recent weeks, but it's unknown
whether oil killed them.
Mating
 Mate selection seems to be an annual
affair carried out by the female. Some will
choose the same male every year. The pair
will defend the nest site against
competitors. The distance between nests is
typically equal to that span whereby a
neighbor's outstretched bill is just out of
reach when both parties are sitting on their
respective clutch.
Eggs
 Female pelicans typically lay two to three
eggs at two to three day intervals. Incubation
may last from 29 to 35 days and is performed
by both sexes. The parents relieve one another
every day or two and spend off duty hours
feeding themselves rather than each other.
The young are born naked and helpless and
regurgitated foodstuffs are extracted from the
cavernous maws of the parents. Floods and
cold rainy weather cause great losses of eggs
and young, so more than one chick being
raised in a nest is rare
Maturity
 At three to four weeks of age, the young can
escape into the reeds or water; at ten to
twelve weeks they leave the colony
temporarily and begin to fly and to fish on
their own. Most are sexually mature at
three and four years of age.
Evolution and systematics
 One of the earliest known pelicans was
Pelecanus grandis from the Lower Miocene
(22.5–5 million years ago). At least three
other species have been identified in later
deposits from that epoch.
Evolution and systematic
 The question of phylogeny among the
pelecaniform birds is tricky: the
Phalacrocoracidae, Sulidae, Fregatidae,
and Phaetheontidae share a number of
morphological characteristics with
pelicans. Perhaps the most significant
shared characteristic is the presence of
webbing connecting all four toes.
Evolution and systematic
 In addition, these families exhibit a greater
similarity in their social displays than
would be expected by evolutionary chance
alone. This grouping conflicts with DNA
data that suggest that pelicans are only
distantly related to these taxa and are more
closely related to the shoebill (Balaeniceps
rex) and the hammerhead (Scopus
umbretta) than to other extant birds
Evolution and systematic
 Ornithologists also disagree on the
phylogenetic relationships among the
seven living species. Most researchers
agree, however, that the brown pelican
(Pelecanus occidentalis) assumed its own
evolutionary trajectory separate from the
others quite early.
Why is the brown pelican
endangered?
The brown pelican is endangered partly because
of humans catching them on a hook and over 200
brown pelicans have bin rescued at a wharf and
have bin injured last summer.
 . In the late 1970's, there were no Brown Pelicans
left in Louisianna due to DDT. In the early 1990's,
as their numbers began to increase, Brown
Pelicans were moved from the endangered
species list and placed on the threatened species
list.Currently, their biggest threat comes from
loss of habitat

What is being done to help the
brown pelican?
 DDT was banned and human disturbances
of nesting colonies was also banned.
Resources
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/nature/endang/birds/
bpelican.htm
 http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/birds
/printouts/Brownpelicanprintout.shtml
 http://www.dfg.ca.gov/te_species/index/classifica
tion/birdslist/pelican.html
 http://www.rit.edu/~rhrsbi/GalapagosPages/Brown
Pelican.html
 http://pelicanharbor.bizland.com/pelicansinfo.cht
ml
 http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/environment/eao/biolog
y/usfw-list/Pelican.htm
