Pelicans From the South Find Refuge on the Channel Islands

National parks protect the wildlife we can see. They may matter just as much for species that are not there yet. Large protected landscapes, away from urban development, give animals room to find food and mates — and, as the climate changes in ways never seen before, they increasingly serve as refuges for species driven from their old homes.

A comeback on Anacapa

The California Channel Islands have sheltered birds for millennia, and the California brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis californicus) is one of their success stories. By 1970 the insecticide DDT had brought the species so low that it was placed on the endangered species list; park managers counted just 500 nests on West Anacapa Island. After DDT was banned, the colony recovered, and by 1985 there were nearly 5,000 nests on the island.

California brown pelicans. NPS / Michael Ready.

Numbers kept climbing until 2009, when the collapse of the northern sardine, the pelican’s main food, sent nesting numbers down again. By 2014 the sardines, and the pelicans with them, had begun to recover.

Newcomers from the south

Meanwhile, the pelicans nesting in the warming waters of the Sea of Cortez — the heart of the species’ historic range — suffered a nearly complete breeding collapse for lack of food. Those birds have had to find new places to feed, roost and survive, and many followed their prey north into cooler water, to the Channel Islands. With good habitat and plenty of food, they have not only survived but thrived.

Recent surveys on Anacapa Island counted more than 12,000 pelican nests. How many belong to newcomers from the Gulf of California is unknown, but Park Service ecologists believe they are a significant part of the growing population. The Southern California Research Learning Center is helping park managers and partners design monitoring to understand how pelican populations are shifting and how coastal ecosystems are responding.

The pelicans are not alone. Brown boobies and blue-footed boobies, both usually considered tropical seabirds, have begun nesting and breeding on the islands — a development park managers are eager to document.

A story of hope

Stories of ecological change are often stories of extinction. It matters just as much, the Learning Center argues, to tell stories of hope and success like this one — and to remind people of the value of protected places for all the species we share the planet with, including those that may not yet be using them.

The Southern California Research Learning Center is one of 18 such centers in the national park system, working to increase science in the parks, communicate research that supports stewardship, and bring science into the visitor experience at Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, Channel Islands National Park and Cabrillo National Monument.

Sources

Based on "Seabirds from Further South Find Refuge on the Channel Islands," Southern California Research Learning Center, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The source gives the pelican’s subspecies as californicanus; the correct name, californicus, is used here.