Biologists Still Baffled by Pelicans' Disappearance
Article by James MacPherson, The Associated PressWednesday, August 18, 2004
BISMARCK, N.D.
Federal biologists want to attach backpack-like satellite tracking devices on pelicans as they try to solve the mystery of why the big birds left a North Dakota refuge.
That's if the pelicans return next year to the Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge near Medina.
Biologists are seeking $70,000 in federal money to purchase the electronic tracking equipment that would be harnessed to pelicans, said Dennis Jorde, with the U.S. Geological Survey's Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center in Jamestown.
"The satellite transmitters will hopefully address why these pelicans abandoned their breeding grounds this year," Jorde said.
Nearly 28,000 birds showed up to nest at the refuge in early April but took off in late May and early June, abandoning their chicks and eggs. The 4,385-acre refuge in central North Dakota had been the site of the largest nesting colony of white pelicans in North America.
The exodus has wildlife experts stumped.
"There aren't any answers, so far," said Ken Torkelson, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Bismarck.
Torkelson said wildlife officials have checked air, water and soil quality at the site. They have also checked for diseases, food supply, predators and other possible factors.
The only thing biologists know for sure is that the pelicans are still gone, Torkelson said.
Pam Pietz, a biologist at the research center in Jamestown, said wildlife officials hope to attach 15 of the electronic tracking devices on the birds next year.
Biologists captured four adult pelicans this year at the refuge and attached the signaling devices to track them. The birds took separate paths when they left Chase Lake on June 2, flying throughout North Dakota, Minnesota, South Dakota and Montana.
Pietz said finding out where the thousands of pelicans have gone is only part of the equation.
"For me, it's not where they are, but why they left," she said.
Torkelson said wildlife officials believe the pelicans will return next year, like they have for at least a century.
"They may come back in fewer numbers, or in more numbers or exactly the same numbers. But we're assuming that they're going to be back," Torkelson said.
