the curious case of the nyc pelicans
pelicans?? in new york city?? it's more likely than you'd think
few birds elicit images of a tropical vacation like the pelican. reasonably so—they’re a frequent sight along beaches in california, the caribbean, both sides of central america, the gulf coast, and northern south america.
earlier this month, 40 of them lumbered through new york city airspace.
every time i’ve seen new york pelicans in the past, i’ve thought, “must be climate change.” pelicans like warm weather, after all. and new york city has felt downright tropical in recent years. like, we’ve been hit with more, and more powerful hurricanes, and did it even snow last winter?
except when i actually looked into it, i learned: climate change is part of our pelicans’ story, but it’s not as simple as more hot means more birds.
so: brown pelicans are the more coastal of north america’s two pelican species. they inhabit colonies on isolated sandy beaches and islands where they nest on the ground, usually among low shrubs. if nests get disturbed by humans or other predators, they’re prone to failure. now, pelicans do not breed in or near new york; on the atlantic coast, they range from florida to maryland, nesting during the spring and summer. except young birds may wander up and down the coast, and all of the birds will wander after breeding season is over.
when i saw 40 pelicans, i was sure we’d broken the high count for pelicans seen in new york state—but not so. according to bull’s birds of new york state, brown pelicans were once rare here, with only 11 sightings between 1902 and 1970. but the birds splashed onto the scene in the 1980s: birders spotted hundreds in cape may, nj in 1983, and new york birders submitted around 50 records between 1987 and 1995, including a report of 87 birds on july 12, 1992. birds even built nests in new jersey in 1992, 1994, 2001, and 2002—though they never laid any eggs.
the simple fact is that pelicans were in a bad place during the middle of the 20th century, and then starting in the 1980s, there were suddenly a lot more. previously, humans were using tons of pesticides such as endrine and ddt (not related to deet) which were ending up in the environment. endrine would kill the birds directly, while ddt would enter the food chain through small animals, eaten by big animals, until it ended up accumulating in big predators like bald eagles, peregrine falcons, and pelicans. all of this ddt was causing egg shells to thin, so that the eggs couldn’t support the weight of their parent.
the result was catastrophic for brown pelicans. by 1964, texas’ pelican population decreased from 5,000 to 50, and that number stayed low through 1980. louisiana’s pelican population dropped from somewhere between 12,000 and 85,000… to zero. south carolina’s population dropped from 5,000 to 1,000, according to a 1994 paper in the wildlife society bulletin.
hardcore conservation efforts followed, and they worked. the government outlawed the substances, conservation plans were put in place, and birds were re-introduced to louisiana. the result was record-high numbers of pelicans in north carolina, south carolina, and florida by the late 1980s. in 1987, pelicans started nesting on chincoteague island in virginia, and by the end of the 1990s, they were nesting in maryland. their presence in the chesapeake bay has exploded too.
today, pelican sightings feel like they’re increasing again in the new york area. i’ve seen plenty of articles reference climate change—that’s totally a possible driver, but given the history of the brown pelican, that’s not the first place my mind would go. the colonies south of us are thriving, and there’s more baitfish than there used to be in the new york harbor, making it an attractive place to visit for a meal. given that pelicans are social creatures that usually flock and are prone to wandering, 40 pelicans could be more of a blip than a pattern.
why would i want to dismiss climate change as the cause of my pelicans? well, people love to hear a silver lining to climate change, like, ”things are shit, but at least it’s good for the pelicans.” but that’s naive thinking. previously, the direct cause of the pelican increase was conservation policy that stopped people from killing pelicans directly and indirectly, plus policy that offered pelicans more food when they did end up in our area. it wasn’t climate change that was good for the pelicans the first time around—it was conservation.
instead, we need to consider the real story of pelicans and climate change. pelican colonies will lose ground to sea level rise as the ocean swamps their nests or shrinks their preferred beach habitat. we don’t have reason to believe that pelicans will choose to establish themselves elsewhere in significant numbers, yet, and if they do, it’s not clear whether they’d succeed. pelican colonies are extremely sensitive to human disturbance—for example, tourist presence at a colony in the gulf of california led to an average nest success rate of 0 to 0.6 surviving fledglings per nest, versus 1.2 to 1.5 for nests without human disturbance in the same area, according to birds of the world. you’d be hard-pressed to find appropriate habitat in new york city or on long island that doesn’t also feature intense human disturbance.
for now, we know that new york *is* a part of some pelican life cycles, but more as a post-breeding visit, rather than as a potential home. and it has been for a long time. climate change might be an easy way to explain pelicans if you haven’t seen them around here before, but is that really the answer, or just a correlation? because precedent says that more northern pelicans is instead indicative of a conservation success. maybe things are totally different this time around and it really is climate change bringing more pelicans to new york city. but ultimately, the unmitigated effects of climate change will probably mean fewer, not more pelicans.
postscript
oof, friday afternoon newsletter. silly. i mainly am doing this because i realized i gave the wrong location for my 10/21 walk (that’s tomorrow) in my last newsletter. we’re meeting at the 9th street entrance to prospect park tomorrow at 9am. you can still register here.
i’m also leading a walk sunday october 22 at green-wood cemetery for nyc queer birders! starts at 9:30, more info here.
finally: i feel like, because i’m jewish and i have a “platform,” i’m supposed to say something about palestine. like two weeks ago i probably would have said something couched with context of the holocaust and the history of imperialism. but at this point, man, i’m not couching genocide. what can you say except for “free palestine.” i’ve been emailing/calling my representatives calling for a ceasefire and donating to the palestinian children’s relief fund because my work does matching for them. seems like a good place to start.
here’s a cool photo of an eastern meadowlark i took in prospect park the other day.
