Another dickwad has seriously injured a California brown pelican along our coastline, this time slitting one's jaw pouch with a sharp weapon. A $5,000 reward has been put up.
]
OC's Brown Pelicans No Longer Endangered. Oh, Really?
Despised by some fishermen for poaching would-be catches–when in fact pelicans feed only on bait fish like sardines and anchovies–the sea birds in the very recent past have had their beaks bent and their heads stomped American History X style in Orange County. Ironically, California brown pelicans were recently removed from the endangered species list although they are still a threatened species.
You think? The latest pelican victim was found by Long Beach animal control workers last Wednesday, April 16, in the 5400 block of Ocean Boulevard, near Bayshore Park.
Officials at International Bird Rescue (IBR) in San Pedro, where the pelican is being given a 50-50 chance of recovering from surgery to stitch up the pouch, originally offered a $2,500 reward for information leading to whoever did the dirty deed. The Animal Defense Fund later doubled the reward.
Call the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at 310.328.1516 if you can help identify the pelican's tormenter. The federal agency has scheduled a press conference at IBR at 11 this morning to discuss the case.
Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.