2012: Contaminated Pelicans await admission exam at HWCC

Along with our daily work of caring for patients and increasing our capacity at HWCC, Bird Ally X has been working to protect Brown Pelicans from the hazards of this year’s fishing season. The pelicans that hatched in the South are soon to arrive as they leave their nests and disperse North.

 Working with California Department of Fish and Wildlife and US Fish and Wildlife Service, BAX has developed educational signs that will be posted at all regional marinas, boat launches and fish processing sites.


We’ve continued to call for alternative methods of disposing of the valuable remains of sport fishers’ cleaned catch, such as composting, soil amendments, etc. Not only does irresponsible disposal of fish “waste” injure and kill pelicans and other seabirds, the act is mindless, thoughtless, careless – an utter disregard of the contribution of the fish.

As it turns it out, discarding all but the fillets of a salmon, or tuna, or rockfish is also akin to throwing away money. Soil amendment companies both locally and beyond the “Redwood Curtain” have need for exactly the kind of nutrients that fish remains provide.
 Connecting these businesses with this resource should be easy and mutually beneficial.

Pelicans in the spray of fish waste, Crescent City 2012

So far, there are no clear indications of what might happen this year. The discharge pipe that poured ground fish onto the waiting heads and backs of recently fledged pelicans in Shelter Cove still operates although now the pipe is submerged. It remains to be seen if this will be an effective solution. One thing is clear – it cannot be as effective as simply ending the practice of dumping what Cal EPA regards as sewage into state waters. 

November 2012, Crescent City received a $527,000 grant from the Wildlife Conservation Board to build a new, bird safe, fish cleaning station.
 
Among the factors over which we have no control, the breeding season in Southern California is in jeopardy. 2013 began with an alarming marine mammal die-off lasting until spring, just as Brown Pelicans would be returning to the Channel Islands to breed.  Because pelicans rely on the same fish as sea lions (i.e. anchovies) this might bode poorly for this year’s offspring. Without anchovies, pelicans, sea lions and many other species cannot survive.

 Last year (2012) only 10 Brown Pelicans fledged from the Channel Islands. Every young of year bird we saw anywhere along the West coast came into the world at the breeding colonies of Baja California. The subsequent disasters that befell these birds as they moved North are a terrible indication of how badly industrial civilization has compromised the California Coast. Harmful algal blooms, disappearing food, both commercial and sport fishing infrastructure, from trawler waste to discarded line – these are serious challenges to Brown pelicans, and all of us.
 

The discharge pipe at Shelter Cove, dousing pelicans in gore, 2012.


A relatively small problem in the landscape of our 21st century environmental nightmare, the infrastructure to handle fish waste on the North Coast is a threat to Brown Pelicans that we can easily solve. Moreover, fish waste is not only a regional problem but one that impacts pelicans and other coastal wildlife throughout California – and everywhere.

Here on the North Coast we have the opportunity to build a model for effective measures that will stop these contaminations. While laws already protect Pelicans and all seabirds, as well as the marine environment, according to a local wildlife biologist, “law enforcement will never see fish waste as deleterious.”

Pelican with tuna head lodged in throat, 2012.

In an important court case in Canada, Environment Canada was able to demonstrate that crude fish waste dumped from a tanker was a deleterious substance due to the harm it caused seabirds.

Hopefully, we’ll see this recognition of fish waste’s harmful impact move South to our region.


Humboldt County faces challenging times on many fronts – sea level rise and other local effects of global climate disruption, as well as the more typical push and pull between development and preservation – the list is long and serious… we worry about fish waste while coal ports are planned up and down the West coast! Yet the manageability of this problem is another good reason to solve it quickly. 

There is much work to be done. Let’s begin with what is in our reach.

Want to help? Let your local leaders know that you want Pelican Safe Marinas. Your contribution to Bird Ally X goes directly toward supporting our work, caring for injured wildlife – your support makes our work possible.  Thank you!
In alliance with Pelicans and all wild animals,

Bird Ally X

Coyote pup receives physical examination upon admission.

AS spring rolls into summer at BAX/HWCC, we are deep in the heart of our busiest season –  our small facility is filling quickly with young animals without parents to care for them. All were made orphans during an unfortunate conflict with the man-made world: mothers shot, mothers hit by cars, mothers and babies caught by house cats, some babies picked up by and taken away from their parents by well-intended tho’ misguided “rescuers”… 



Since last summer we’ve made four additions to our patient housing – an aviary for ravens, hawks and other birds, new mammal housing (currently surrogate home to three orphaned coyote siblings), a raccoon nursery, and a 12 foot diameter seabird pool that can run fresh or salt water. And as the movie cliche’  predicts, since we’ve built it, they have come.

Coyote pups, crow babies, raven babies, hatchling house finches, opossums, baby skunks and nearly two dozen raccoon kits have all been treated at our clinic in Bayside.

How you can help wild familes stay together:

• Don’t trim trees and shrubs until fall, when birds’ nests are empty.        
• Be tolerant of adult mammals, such as raccoons and skunks out in broad daylight. They have more mouths to feed back at the den.
• If you find a young bird learning to fly, keep pets and kids away. Parent birds are nearby. Usually all is well.
• Always, keep cats indoors or on a leash. Outdoor cats die young and together are responsible for billions of wildlife deaths each year.
• If you find a wild baby or adult that you think needs help call 1(888) 975-8188 – we will help you find a wildlife rehabilitator near you. 
• If you’re in the Humoldt/Del Norte area call (707) 822-8839.

Our work is 100% funded by support from the community and wildlife lovers everywhere. To help, please contribute using our paypal donate button. Your contribution is 100% tax-deductible and goes directly to the care of injured and orphaned wildlife as well as our efforts to prevent injuries and keep wild families together! Thank you for your generous support. Your contribution keeps our doors open.

31 December 2012

Dear Friend and Supporter,

Bird Ally X, like so many around the world, faced a very challenging year in 2012.

In 2012 we cared for 100 cat caught songbirds. Rescued over 50 birds entangled in old fishing line and hooks, and of course, over 250 young Brown Pelicans caught in point source pollution from fish cleaning tables all along California’s Redwood Coast.

These rescues, plus hundreds more were possible because of your generous support.

In 2012, Bird Ally X published the groundbreaking An Introduction to Aquatic Bird Rehabilitation, the first manual of its kind. Wildlife rehabilitators from around the world have responded enthusiastically. For 2013 we will publish a manual on washing birds contaminated by various types of pollution.

Our work teaching rehabilitation of aquatic birds, as well as our work caring for injured and orphaned wildlife would not be complete without efforts to eliminate and minimize the hazards industrial civilization presents to our wild neighbors. To this end we are working with US Fish and Wildlife Service and California Department of Fish and Game, as well as municipal and county agencies to help reduce the number of injuries to marine birds at boat launches and fish cleaning stations due to fish waste. 

There only a few hours left in 2012 for your contribution to help aquatic birds and the people who care for them to be tax-deductible this year. Our work for 2013 will depend on your support. Thank you for being a part of our accomplishments in 2012, we look forward to continuing these efforts and more in 2013.

In alliance with wild birds and all wildlife,
Wishing you a joyfulNew Year,           

Monte Merrick
co-Director Bird Ally X

 

 Should Brown Pelicans be rehabilitated? 

There has been recent media chatter regarding the rescue and treatment  of fish oiled Brown Pelicans and other birds by Bird Ally X at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center. A recent opinion piece in the North Coast Journal,  “Bird by Bird“, asked outright if “we should be scrubbin’ these birds?” In the week since its publication BAX staff has had to field this question repeatedly, from those who are volunteering their time, from community leaders, and from those who would like to see this issue swept under the rug.

The most important point is that this crisis was caused by improper fish waste disposal that can be tracked directly to the discharge pipes and infrastructure at Shelter Cove and Crescent City. The harbor districts with jurisdiction over these cleaning tables had been made aware of this problem the previous year. Yet nothing was done in the intervening months before the Young of the Year Pelicans arrived this summer. Federal law prohibits harming Brown pelicans and other wildlife. State law prohibits discharging any substance harmful to fish, plants, birds or mammals into any State water. The discharge pipe at Shelter Cove, an Area of Special Biological Significance, and the cleaning station outflow in Crescent City have contaminated hundreds of pelicans and killed many more. 

 
Fish oil and petroleum are similar in how they compromise a bird’s waterproofing, leading to hypothermia and emaciation. Unless rescued these birds die. Fish oil however does not cause internal damage. The health problems petroleum spill victims suffer that cause disruption in their reproductive cycles are due to ingesting hydrocarbons, not the rehabilitation process. The Pelicans we are treating need to be washed and fed. Very little else is wrong with them. We have no reason to believe that this calamity will have a deleterious impact on their future breeding success. To suggest otherwise is misleading.

Rehabilitators working with Brown Pelicans in California have been banding these birds before release for the last 20 years. Still, band returns, usually found when a bird dies, are not very reliable for post-release survival data… once banded, very few birds are ever seen again. Other post-release studies have their own problems – radio telemetry devices can be a problem for plunge-diving species. In fact most methods of tracking wildlife post-release can be antithetical to the goals and principles of wildlife rehabilitation, which seeks to return wildlife, injured or orphaned anthropogenically, as closely to their condition pre-injury as possible. The ethical ground that we stand on in order to intervene in the lives of wild animals is our commitment to this return. While post-release data can provide information that may help us improve the care we provide, these studies must be designed to be as non-invasive as possible, ensuring they do not add to the simple risk of a free and wild life.


The question of whether or not to treat an injured animal is glib. It fails to imagine the actual world. What is the alternative? Let them suffer and die from their injuries? Capture and euthanize? 

If you are walking down the street and you find an injured Robin, what will you do? Wildlife rehabilitators answer this question many times over every day.

Wildlife rehabilitation professionals, including those of us at Bird Ally X, spend a great deal of time reviewing practices and improving care. Our experiences and results pre-release are certainly a good indication of our likely success post-release. Unless we attempt to provide care there is no learning. To propose that wildlife rehabilitation should not be attempted because not enough biologists have studied its efficacy is disingenuous. Such a proposition poses as science while rejecting the practice that advances knowledge. Such a proposition leaves no room for action, nor does it allow for progress, or a difference, to be made.

In alliance with Brown Pelicans and all wildlife,

Monte Merrick
co-director, Bird Ally X

If you support our work and wish to contribute you can use our Paypal button at the top of this page, or send a check to: 

Bird Ally X
PO Box 1020
Arcata CA  95518 

Thank you

With your help, we’ll have all the fish we need!

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Since the last week in June 184 birds, almost all recently hatched Brown Pelicans, have been admitted for care by Bird Ally X at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center. All but three of these birds were contaminated by fish waste. While the rest of the West coast is seeing an unusually large number of Brown pelicans dying of emaciation –  for reasons not yet understood –  here on the North coast of California, Brown Pelicans and other birds face a different and more easily identified threat. Discharge pipes at fish cleaning stations in Shelter Cove and Crescent City are responsible for the contamination of hundreds of Brown Pelicans and untold numbers of gulls, primarily Heermann’s Gulls, who often forage and hunt with Brown Pelicans.

These birds are being doused in fish waste as they forage for scraps beneath the outflow of these polluting pipes. Fish waste and fish oil disrupt the feather structure that allows a seabird to remain dry and warm when entering the cold waters of the North Pacific. Without rescue they die.

 

Multiple incidents of such contaminations have been documented with photographs and video by Bird Ally X rescue crews in Crescent City and Shelter Cove.

California Department of Fish and Game code 5650 (a)(6) specifically states that it is illegal to allow to enter into State waters any material that “is deleterious to fish, plant life, mammals, or bird life.”

California EPA requires that fish waste from marinas be treated as waste water or sewage, not discharged into State  waters.

After much public pressure, Crescent City Harbor District (CCHD)has reportedly closed the cleaning station with this type of discharge pipe. Humboldt Bay Harbor Recreation and Conservation District (HBHRCD), which has jurisdiction over Shelter Cove’s fish cleaning station has yet to do so. Even now, more birds are being contaminated by this pipe.

These discharge pipes have injured hundreds of birds and killed many more. Biologist Deborah Jaques has said that over 50 pelican carcasses have been recovered. It is unknowable how many have died, or are yet to die.

Pelicans and gulls killed by fish cleaning station discharge is not new to the North Coast. In August/September 2011 Bird Ally X at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center rescued 50 Birds from Crescent City and Shelter Cove suffering from the exact same problem. 

Besides releasing 43 birds, Bird Ally X met with Harbor District officials and provided low-cost, easily maintained solutions. Both Cal EPA and US EPA recommend composting as a zero discharge solution to fish waste at public marinas and boat launches. Both HBHRCD and CCHD have had nearly a year to eliminate the source of pollution and stop killing and injuring Brown Pelicans and other wildlife.

As well as the cost paid by these iconic birds, nearly all of whom are still adolescents, less than 4 months old (Brown Pelicans can live 40 years), the costs incurred by Bird Ally X and Humboldt Wildlife Care Center, the only two permitted rehabilitators on California’s North Coast that can respond to this crisis, threaten our ability to continue as organizations. To date over 180 Birds have been brought into care and more are to come. Yet the Harbor District so far has refused to offer to cover any of the costs at all. This response could cost these organizations jointly over $100,000, not factoring in staff salary.

Volunteers to help with the labor-intensive task of rehabilitating this many large birds are vital to our success. Financial donations are also crucial. Each pelican eats 3-5 pounds of fish each day. That amounts to over $500/day on fish alone.

TO HELP:

visit
www.birdallyx.net
or
www.humwild.org
to learn more and to contribute to the care of these birds.

Contact the Humboldt Bay Harbor Recreation and Conservation District and Crescent City Harbor District. Demand that they stop illegally polluting California Coastal water and killing California Brown Pelicans. Demand that they pay their fair share for the care of the Pelicans they’ve injured.

HBHRCD – http://www.humboldtbay.org/contact/

CCHD – http://www.ccharbor.com/

Along the West coast juvenile Brown Pelicans are flooding into rehabilitation centers and many more are dying on beaches and in bays and coves. At the end of June, as this years newly hatched birds made their way to the North coast, emaciated hatching year Brown Pelicans began coming into care here at Bird Ally X/Humboldt Wildlife Care Center from all of Humboldt and Del Norte counties.

Typically found disoriented no longer able to fly, initially this seemed like a normal occurrence – many juveniles don’t make it, and rehabilitators often provide supportive care for those who struggle, hoping to give them a second chance.

Since we’d already heard that our colleagues in Morro Bay had 20 young BRPE in care, we began to prepare for a similar influx. By July 4 we’d treated a half dozen. On the 7th and 8th, however we began to get calls from all over – by the 9th we had 12 in care.

9 July we received a call that several dead Brown pelicans were on Trinidad beach, perhaps as many as 12, and that there were a few sick looking birds that needed help. We went to investigate. I was very disheartened to see approximately 30 soaking wet HY pelicans in the water, on the rocks and on the fishing dock. We captured 9, took them to our facility at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center, and went back and captured another 9. The next day we captured 9 more.

As of now, we’ve captured 43 in Trinidad, as well as another 30 from around the North Coast.

But the situation has aspects even more grim. Witnesses in Crescent City have described ailing Pelicans (6 reported) being run down and killed with vehicles around the fish cleaning station.Department

12 July we sent a team to Crescent City to investigate the situation. Besides capturing 10 contaminated Pelicans, all juveniles, over 40 impacted birds were seen. Obvious contaminations occurred while they were there coming from the drain from a fish cleaning table that discharges into the harbor. Many birds were observed to have Salmon or Rockfish carcasses lodged deep in their pouches, after being fed by sport fishers.

We’ve also received reports of impacted birds on Gold Bluff beach, above Orick. This will be a difficult location to access without permission from the NPS, although we’ve been invited to go out there with a commercial smelt fisher who doesn’t want the fisheries to take the rap for these injured Pelicans. This person has described what is likely to be feather lice as the culprit, and also believes these pelicans are somehow “tame.” He described them as suicidally diving into rough surf and being thrashed to the beach. Other fishers have described Brown Pelicans attacking their boats and “stealing” their anchovies.

We expect to start washing these birds tomorrow here at HWCC. While we were initially prepared for the idea of  60-100 birds, the reality is that we already have 70 and reports lead us to believe that another 60 would be easy to capture. If so, our facility will certainly be taxed, although I do feel that with support we can make it work.

here’s a recap of the numbers…

BRPE admissions since 22 June 2012

Fort Bragg – 2

Petrolia – 1

unknown – 1

Humboldt bay area -25

Trinidad – 43

Orick – 3

Crescent City -21

Shelter Cove – 5

Our urgent needs to care for these Brown Pelicans:

Financial help!!! Please donate using our Paypal button (our 501(c)3 is underway – your contribution will tax-deductible!)

     We need help paying for:
   
      FISH!!!!
      Medicines
      Operating costs!!

Volunteers: please call 707 825 0801 and let us know when you can come by!

Construction materials:

    Lumber
    Hardware cloth
    Screws

Food for volunteers:

    Healthy Snacks!
    Rehydrating drinks!

Thank YOU!! We cannot help these birds without YOUR HELP!

Please Donate!