Wednesday, July 07, 2004
The Last Pelican
The missing North Dakota pelicans are beginning to surface. Part of the answer appears to be what the Rare Bird Review was first to speculate, the birds finally realized that North Dakota is not the navel of the universe. The birds have apparently moved on, to much more exotic locales like South Dakota. Larger than usual numbers of pelicans have been spotted recently on waters near the Canadian border, on the Yellowstone River in eastern Montana and in wildlife refuges in South Dakota and Minnesota. 
From now into July, we'd normally see 40 or 50 white pelicans here," said Wayne Brininger, a biologist at Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge near Detroit Lakes, MN. The refuge lies about 150 miles from Chase Lake.
"About 10 days ago, we had 600 to 1,000 of them on a couple of lakes, and 1,500 on Flat Lake," he said. "They're spread out, foraging. They aren't nesting."
The RBR suspects that the birds discussed among themselves the joys of parenting in North Dakota, the lack of educational opportunities provided by the state for the hatchlings without a state wide voucher program to use in private schools, and the sudden reduction of salamanders in the general area. They simply decided to become "empty nest couples" and move on to spend a summer at leasure before heading south to the Texas coast for the winter.
The RBR did not check the usual sources for the 'loonies' to find alternate explanations but will hazard a guess that they believe it is the start of the coming ice age. The pelicans are intelligent enough to realize that winter will come very early this year and so they are fattening themselves for the flight south.
The folks at Chase Lake who operate the the bed and breakfast catering to 'birders' in the area to observe pelicans had best think about converting their facility into a cross country skiing lodge.
Will the pelicans come back to North Dakota next year? Now -- there's the real question.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
From now into July, we'd normally see 40 or 50 white pelicans here," said Wayne Brininger, a biologist at Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge near Detroit Lakes, MN. The refuge lies about 150 miles from Chase Lake.
"About 10 days ago, we had 600 to 1,000 of them on a couple of lakes, and 1,500 on Flat Lake," he said. "They're spread out, foraging. They aren't nesting."
The RBR suspects that the birds discussed among themselves the joys of parenting in North Dakota, the lack of educational opportunities provided by the state for the hatchlings without a state wide voucher program to use in private schools, and the sudden reduction of salamanders in the general area. They simply decided to become "empty nest couples" and move on to spend a summer at leasure before heading south to the Texas coast for the winter.
The RBR did not check the usual sources for the 'loonies' to find alternate explanations but will hazard a guess that they believe it is the start of the coming ice age. The pelicans are intelligent enough to realize that winter will come very early this year and so they are fattening themselves for the flight south.
The folks at Chase Lake who operate the the bed and breakfast catering to 'birders' in the area to observe pelicans had best think about converting their facility into a cross country skiing lodge.
Will the pelicans come back to North Dakota next year? Now -- there's the real question.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
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