oiled pelicans find sanctuary on texas coast — texas parks and wildlife _ the texas tribune

8/2/2019 Oiled Pelicans Find Sanctuary on Texas Coast Texas Parks and Wildlife _ The Texas Tribune

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8/12 Oiled Pel icans Find Sanctuary on Texas Coast Texas Parks and Wildli fe | The Texas Tribune

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STATE AGENCIES TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE

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Enlarge photo by: Spencer Selvidge

Twenty brown pelicans now call Texas home after getting "oiled"

in the BP spill off Louisiana's coast

Oiled Pelicans Find Sanctuary on Texas Coastby Elizabeth Titus 8/10/2010

Four pelicans sit atop a light pole at the sleepy

Goose Island State Parkcampground,

scanning the water for the silvery flicker of fish

jumping from St. Charles Bay. One bird spots

a catch, dive-bombing into the water. The

others go back to preening.

Nearby, park spokesman Mike Mullenweg sits

in his idling pickup truck, scanning the

pelicans for red and silver leg bands that

would mean they came from Louisiana,

rescued from the Gulf oil spill. The pelicans

ignore his booming voice, the chug of the

engine and the dredge out in the water.

Such is the low-key reception Texas has given to nearly 200 rehabilitated birds, mostly pelicans,

since the spill. Veterinarians and volunteers cleaned the birds, which then got a lift from the

Coast Guard to the Texas shore. These are the survivors. Deepwater Horizon Unified Command

every day produces a report of how many animals responders find and whether they are clean,

"visibly oiled or dead. So far, responders have collected more than 1,400 birds alive in

Louisiana alone. Another 2,100 have turned up dead.

As of Sunday, nearly 700 birds have been rescued and released. Neither disaster responders in

Louisiana nor park officials in Texas are sure just how much the pelicans' rescue and release

has cost. But they say they are tracking the expenses, and they expect BP to foot the bill

eventually.

Here at Goose Island, near Rockport, the birds seem to be thriving. They enjoy plenty of fishand the company of thousands of other pelicans, Mullenweg says. But officials are holding their

breath to see whether the rescued birds stick around no sure thing, say veterinarians and

biologists involved in the pelicans' release. The birds may fly back to Louisiana, where they could

again face dangers in contaminated habitats. And the ones that stay could face survival

struggles, too, from coastal litter and food competition with other species. The birds have fought

and won against greater threats than the oil spill pesticides landed brown pelicans on the

endangered species list but were de-listed just nine months ago.

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Rescue mission

As his truck putts along Goose Island, Mullenweg sweats through his khaki uniform and points

out birds. His job title is park interpreter, which has nothing to do with language. A budding

butterfly photographer in his spare time, Mullenweg says the job often involves taking second

graders fishing or bird-watching to drive home a lesson plan about conservation on the island.

On this day he looks for banded pelicans, the ones oiled in the wake of BP's spill and whose

photos stoked public emotion early on in the disaster. The live ones come in looking "like a little

ball of tar that you can sort of recognize is a bird," says Luis Padilla, a veterinarian from the

Smithsonian Institution serving a stint at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in response to the oil

spill. He helped coordinate the release of 20 brown pelicans at Goose Island and another 174

pelicans and other birds at theAransas National Wildlife Refuge.

Before arriving in Texas, the birds made their first stop at a rehab center in Houma, La., where

they got a serious scrub-down with dish soap, Padilla says. Veterinarians rehydrated them,

monitored their temperatures and took blood. "Vets can then say, 'Okay, this bird is good,'"

Padilla says. "Then, we need to find a place where it can go."

In Texas, Parks & Wildlife biologist Andy Tirpak was ready for that question. But first he

needed to know: Would the birds be disease-free? Would any exotic species be among them?

Would they crowd out other wildlife here in Texas?

That wildlife includes white pelicans, which migrate in the winter to Goose Island. There, they

oin brown pelicans, like the ones rescued from the spill. Food competition intensifies during

these months.

Brown pelicans now nest and fish all along the Gulf Coast. Thats a vast improvement from

decades ago, when brown pelican numbers dwindled Gulf-wide because the pesticide DDT

weakened their egg shells. They disappeared from Louisiana altogether, Padilla says.


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KUT Reporters Examine Oil Spill's Effect onTexasby Erika Aguilar, Nathan Bernier and Jennifer Stayton

May 4, 2010

Front Page

Texas Parks and Wildlife

Back To Top

In the summer, Texas would be able to sustain the oil-spill refugees, Tirpak determined. In mid-

June, he got a response from the rehabilitation center in Louisiana: Pelicans would soon be

ready for the trip. On July 28, response staff in Houma took 20 pelicans in dog crates big

enough to fit Great Danes to New Orleans, where they met a Coast Guard cargo aircraft. Three

and a half hours later, the plane touched down, with birds aboard, at the regional airport in

Rockport.

Tirpak was on hand as trucks delivered the pelicans from the airport to the tip of Goose Island.

Rain threatening, helpers lifted off the tops of the crates. Some pelicans flew out; others walked.

They cleaned and preened, tentative at first. Then, in twos and threes, they took off into the bay:

Texas' newest transplants.

"That's why they're called 'wild'"

Officials at both Goose Island and the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge say they believe the

released pelicans are doing well. No birds have turned up sick or injured so far. In fact, none

have turned up at all. But their futures are far from certain.

They could return to Louisiana, perhaps before their former habitats have recovered from the

damage wreaked by oil. No one really knows, though. Padilla, the veterinarian, says it's possible.

Tirpak says it's probable. Dan Alonso, the manager of Aransas, doesn't expect it. But, he says,

"wildlife do crazy things. That's why they're called 'wild.'"

The oil muck in Louisiana isn't the only potential hazard for the birds. Litter can prove

dangerous on the Texas coast, Mullenweg says, especially fishing line. Birds tangle with it,

sometimes getting grounded and malnourished. Some end up in the University of Texas at

Austin'sAnimal Rehabilitation Keep in Port Aransas, or the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus

Christi, which runs a small hospital exclusively for birds.

On Goose Island, Mullenweg tries to combat the risk by keeping a bin at the end of the pier for

people to dispose of used fishing line. As he unscrewed the bottom of the bin, out clattered

aluminum cans, followed by other trash and bunches of colored line. The park sends the lineaway to be melted down and reused.

Mullenweg and the others know from experience that the pelicans' health and habitat are

fragile. The birds joined the endangered species list in 1970, two years before DDT wasbanned,

and were only removed in November. Mullenweg compared seeing a brown pelican in the 1970s

to seeing an endangeredwhooping crane today. "You can see them but it's a big deal," he

says. "Here's this great wildlife recovery story," Padilla adds. "Now it's gotten hit with the oil."

The park does not expect any more rescued birds for now, but stands ready. In Louisiana, bird

numbers in the Deepwater report spiked this week. On Sunday, 15 live birds and 78 dead

ones came ashore.

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oiled pelicans find sanctuary on texas coast — texas parks and wildlife _ the texas tribune

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