Image credit: Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times

Disorientated, distressed, and weak brown pelicans are being found wondering and dying far from their normal coastal habitats, and the cause is currently unknown. From the Los Angeles Times, CA:

Wildlife rescuers from San Diego to San Francisco suddenly are facing a distressing biological mystery: Disoriented and bruised California brown pelicans are landing on highways and airport runways and in farm fields, alleys and backyards miles from their normal coastal haunts.

.       .       .

Bird rescuers were rushing pelican blood samples and carcasses to state wildlife authorities and laboratories that specialize in detecting potentially fatal algae toxins, such as domoic acid, that have plagued the species in past years. But domoic acid typically sickens marine animals in spring and summer, not in January.

.       .       .

Brown pelicans plunged to near zero population growth in the 1960s and ’70s because the pesticide DDT infiltrated their food in nesting grounds such as Anacapa Island, about 11 miles off Oxnard. DDT residues in fish the pelicans consumed were believed to have prevented the mothers from depositing calcium in the shells of their eggs, which caused them to break easily.

When DDT was banned in the United States in 1972, the species started to recover. In February, the Interior Department announced a proposal to remove brown pelicans from the national endangered species list.