NEWPORT BEACH — Scores of sick and starving pelicans have been found in coastal California communities in recent weeks and many others have died.
Lifeguards spotted a cluster of two dozen sick pelicans earlier this week on a pier in coastal Newport Beach and called in wildlife experts to assist.
Volunteer Jason Foo holds a rescued pelican by its beak while treating the bird at the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach, Calif., Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
A sick pelican sits on the beach in Newport Beach, Calif., Tuesday, May 7, 2024. It is not immediately clear what is sickening the birds. Some wildlife experts noted the pelicans are malnourished, though marine life abounds off the Pacific Coast. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Brown pelicans that were starving recuperate at the Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach, Calif., on Friday, May 3, 2024, after a mass stranding of species over the past few weeks. (Leonard Ortiz/The Orange County Register via AP)
Lindsey Campbell, left, a senior wildlife tech, is assisted by volunteer Lan Wiborg in feeding a malnourished brown pelican at Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach, Calif., on Friday, May 3, 2024. (Leonard Ortiz/The Orange County Register via AP)
Lindsey Campbell a senior wildlife tech at Wildlife Care Center, takes a blood sample from a brown pelican in Huntington Beach, Calif., on Friday, May 3, 2024, after the center was inundated with with starving brown pelicans after a mass stranding over the past few weeks. (Leonard Ortiz/The Orange County Register via AP)
Lindsey Campbell, left, a senior wildlife tech at Wildlife Care Center, uses a large feeding syringe to feed a brown pelican that was starving and badly dehydrated Friday, May 3, 2024, in Huntington Beach, Calif. (Leonard Ortiz/The Orange County Register via AP)
Debbie McGuire, left, of the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center, watches as Newport Beach police officers load cages carrying sick pelicans into a van for treatment in Newport Beach, Calif., Tuesday, May 7, 2024. It is not immediately clear what is sickening the birds. Some wildlife experts noted the pelicans are malnourished, though marine life abounds off the Pacific Coast. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Debbie McGuire, left, executive director of the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center, and Newport Beach police officers prepare cages to rescue sick pelicans in Newport Beach, Calif., Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Brown pelicans that were starving recuperate at the Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach, Calif., on Friday, May 3, 2024, after a mass stranding of species over the past few weeks. (Leonard Ortiz/The Orange County Register via AP)
Debbie McGuire, executive director of the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach, said the birds are the latest group that they’ve tried to save after taking in more than 100 other pelicans that were anemic, dehydrated and weighing only half of what they should.
“They are starving to death and if we don’t get them into care, they will die,” McGuire said. “It really is a crisis.”
It is not immediately clear what is sickening the birds. Some wildlife experts noted the pelicans are malnourished even though marine life abounds off the Pacific Coast.
Bird Rescue, which runs two wildlife centers in Northern and Southern California, reported 110 sick pelicans in the past three weeks, many entangled in fishing line or hooks. A similar event occurred in 2022, the group said.
Wildlife organizations are focused on caring for the birds until they can be released back into the wild.
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