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#1 | |
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: California USA
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Scott posted the following as a reply in Roger's most recent pelican thread. In order that I notdistract from Roger's thread, I am starting a new onefor my response, whichseizes a timely opportunity to address a vital topic. I am also posting thisin the Wildlife Photography forum for those who do not visit this one.
snostorm wrote: Quote:
There are probably any number of causes of pelican illness, abnormal behavior,and unnaturalmortality, and I have had experience with a few -- pesticides and oil ingestion fromoil spills are the two that have affected Brown Pelicans the most in California, plus this year they and many other species have been hit hard by domoic acid poisoning from red tide organisms. When I was a graduate student in Florida there was an unprecidenteddie-off of White Pelicans - they were literally dropping out of the sky all over the place. FWS brought us one to autopsy, and I was assigned to the unenviable task (which I still vividly remember) - I won't go into the gory details, but the parasite load the bird was carrying was absolutely stupendous - nothing could have lived for long in that condition. Why so many were afflicted at the same time and in the same way has never to my knowledge been explained. Life in nature is not always as pretty as the pictures we see. Photographers and birders need to be aware that injured birds they might encounter can be dangerous - the birdsdon't know that people are trying to help them - they are hurting and will defend themselves instinctivelyagainst what they perceive as a threat. Long billed and long necked birdslike herons and cranes are especially dangerous - they will strike first at shiny objects - like eyes! During the American Trader oil spill a number of years ago a good samaritan attempted to rescue a weakened Brown Pelican that crashed onto a highway and for his trouble got his face ripped open from his ear to the corner of his mouth by the nail at the end of its bill! When the bird rescue people go after a pelican they carry a towel to wrap around its head so its eyes are covered - same goes for other largebirds. And it goes without saying that the talons of hawks and eaglescan be viciousweapons, too. Ihave seenthat photographers who have recounted here recent rescues of birds and other animals have behaved prudently, but lest some others be tempted by good intentions to act impulsively without thinking first, I thought it worthwhile to bring up the topic. |
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#2 |
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Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Chicago Suburb, IL, USA
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Hi penolta,
Very good information indeed! I've yet to run into the situation, but I have a local wildlife rescue and rehab unit's # in my cell's memory, and would call them first if I saw an animal that needed help. I know that usually people, with the best intentions, usually do more harm to wildlife than good, and I'm basically a chicken anyway:-). The peilcan/pigeon incident actually did happen -- I saw a video of it grabbing the pigeon on a You-Tube clip. It's not pretty, but if you're interested, it's here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=QNNl_uWmQXE The BBC story is with the pic of the pigeon looking around is here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...on/6083468.stm Scott |
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#3 |
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Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Frazier Park, CA
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You bring up a number of very good points about dealing with nature. A couple of weeks ago our little local weekly paper carried a picture of a dead mountain lion cub. Apparently it grabbed a dog out of a backyard and several people tried to get it to drop the dog, ending up killing it. The dog is fine, but the owners now don't let it loose at night (something everyone should do when they live in the mountains). Between last year's fires affecting nature's food supplies and the draught, there are more and more "close encounters" with larger (normally reclusive) wildlife.
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#4 | |
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Join Date: Jan 2007
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penolta wrote:
Quote:
And haven't seen it yet.... might ATTACK (GET OFF MY BACK) INJURE one, but not eat it would not surprise me AT ALL. |
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