Photos: Saving starving pelicans
San Pedro’s Oiled Bird Care and Education Center has rescued scores of cold and starving brown pelicans suffering from a mysterious affliction. In January, the birds started turning up listless on beaches or begging for food in parking lots along the West Coast. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
Hungry pelicans await the afternoon feeding time. Six pounds of fish are consumed each day by an average 12-pound pelican. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
Intern Diana Pereira takes bucket of thawed and washed sardines into the aviary to feed the pelicans. Stretching their necks, they use long bills like chopsticks, snatching fish six at a time and tipping back their heads to gulp them. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
Row of the birds await the afternoon feeding time. The International Bird Rescue Research Center has been able to save about two-thirds of the 435 pelicans it has treated so far at its two coastal centers, but the effort has meant shoveling out $11,000 a month for pelican all-you-can-eat seafood dinners. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
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A pelican with tags on both legs walks through the aviary. The center is putting blue tag on birds that bear federal tags too so they can be more easily accounted for. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
Volunteer Sharon Jenkins pauses to adjust her glasses while filling buckets with thawed and washed fish used to feed the pelicans. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
