MIAMI---People who feed brown pelicans chunks of fish left over from a day of fishing are unwittingly contributing to a painful death for the birds, a University of Florida scientist says.
So UF and the Florida Sea Grant program are launching an educational campaign to let fishermen know they are hurting -- not helping -- the protected species, says Harrison Bresee, a marine agent based in the Miami-Dade County extension office, a part of UF's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.
"The problem," Bresee says, "is that a lot of people get to a cleaning station, clean their fish, put the filets in their cooler and feed pelicans the leftover carcasses, thinking the free meal is helping the birds."
Actually, Bresee says, it's hurting them. Pelicans can't catch large-boned fish such as dolphin or grouper on their own. And they can't digest the bones of the larger fish. The birds fly off, bones caught in their throat or pressing against their stomach lining.
"If the bones make it into the pelican's stomach they can puncture the stomach and other organs," Bresee says. "If the bones get caught in the pelican's throat, they can block the passage of other food and the pelican literally starves to death.
"People that feed pelicans feel like they are doing something nice by giving them a meal," Bresee said. "But by feeding them, they are killing them with kindness."
That theme appears on the educational signs Bresee and other marine agents are posting at about 1,000 marinas statewide. The signs, produced with help from the Yamaha Contender Miami Billfish Tournament, are aimed at alerting fishermen to the dangers of feeding pelicans.
For those who can't resist feeding the birds, Bresee recommends giving them
boneless chunks or smaller fish that would be part of their natural diet:
pinfish, grunts, small mullet. He also recommends disposing of the
carcasses of larger fish by putting them in a covered waste bin or grinding
them up so pelicans
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Contact: Harrison Bresee
305-361-4017
University of Florida
21-Apr-1999