The Pelican and the Gull

In the spring laughing gulls return to St. John from the coast of Venezuela where they habitually spend their winter vacations. While in the Virgin Islands, these bold and boisterous sea birds visit the less frequented offshore cays where they mate and lay their eggs. In addition to their breeding activities, the laughing gulls spend their time gathering food to eat, which can include fish and other seafood as well as just about anything that we humans decide to throw their way.

One method the laughing gull has of getting food is to steal fish from another seabird that inhabits the region, the brown pelican. The laughing gull accomplishes this larceny by waiting for the brown pelican to make a successful dive.

When the pelican has a bill full of fish and water, it transfers the fish to the pouch that hangs below its bill. The pelican cannot fly away or swallow the fish until the water is drained from the pouch. Laughing gulls either circle closely above the pelican or land on the pelican's bill or head. The gull may even give the pelican a sharp peck or two. If the pelican pays too much attention to the antics of the laughing gull and not enough attention to the delicate draining and swallowing process, the pelican may lose some of the trapped fish. The gull then swoops down and scoops up the pelican's hard-earned catch, flying away at top speed from the scene of the crime and makes short work of his ill-gotten gains.

There is a West Indian folk tale that deals with this phenomenon. It was told to me recently by Ranger Laurel Brannick of the Virgin Island National Park Service. The tale goes like this:

Once upon a time the Pelican had a large body and a small bill, while the Seagull had a small body and a large bill.

Neither the Pelican, nor the Seagull was happy with this state of affairs. The pelican could not catch enough fish with its small beak to satisfy the needs of such a large creature as himself, and the big bulky bill on the diminutive Seagull only interfered with its ability to fly.

The two seabirds decided to remedy the situation by trading bills, the Gull getting the small bill for its smaller body and the Pelican getting the large bill, more suitable for its large body. The Seagull, realizing that the Pelican had more to gain from the trade, convinced the Pelican promise to share his presumably increased catch. The Pelican agreed to give up half of its catch upon the demand of the Seagull.

Immediately after the trade the Pelican tried out his new bill. He dove into the water and came up with a bill full of tasty fish. It was just as the Pelican thought. He had become the best fisher of all the sea birds.

The Pelican let the water slowly drain out of its beak. He tilted back his head to swallow some of the savory fresh fish, and, just then, he felt a stabbing pain on the top of his head. It was the Seagull who had landed on the Pelican's back and was giving him a series of sharp pecks on the top of his head with his small, but pointy beak.

The Seagull did this to remind the Pelican of the agreement they had made. To make sure the Pelican understood, the gull cried shrilly into the Pelican's ear, "Half! Half! Half", and to this day the Seagull that visits the Virgin Islands, the one now called the Laughing Gull, makes the same distinctive sound, "Half, Half, Half!"

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The brown pelican is one of the most common and easily recognizable birds found on St. John. Like the human population of the island some brown pelicans are native Virgin Islanders and permanent residents, while others are temporary residents who come to St. John from North America for the winter season.

The brown pelican is a large bird, weighing as much as ten pounds and having a wingspan of up to eight feet. A decent-sized pelican can consume about four pounds of fish a day.

Brown pelicans are excellent fishermen. This is extremely fortunate for them, because if they had to buy their fish at today's prices they'd need to have good jobs and make lots of money, not an easy trick on St. John, especially for a pelican.

Although pelicans are often perceived as ungainly or clumsy when seen on land, they are extremely graceful in the air. They maneuver with ease and can reach airspeeds of over 35 mph, and with a good tailwind their ground speed can be over 60 mph.

Pelicans have excellent eyesight and can spot fish from heights of over seventy feet. When suitable prey is selected, the pelican tucks in its head and wings and makes a steep and rapid dive into the sea. With its great bill acting like a fisherman's net, the brown pelican is usually successful in scooping up a large mouthful of unsuspecting fish that just moments before were swimming peacefully beneath the waves, completely oblivious to the danger from above.

The captured fish are stored temporarily in the pouch that hangs from the pelican's long bill. In addition to the fish, the pelican may have as much as three gallons of water in its pouch. As three gallons of water weighs 24 pounds, the pelican obviously needs to lighten up his load before taking to the air once again. To accomplish this task without allowing any fish to escape, the pelican slowly squeezes the water out of its pouch.

During this time the pelican reverts to its awkward and clumsy state. Laughing Gulls, a species that frequents the Virgin Islands in the summer, may take advantage of this temporary vulnerability by circling just above the pelican or by landing on its head or bill and perhaps giving the pelican some sharp pecks in the hope of stealing a fish or two.

Once the water is squeezed out of the pouch, the pelican is able to swallow. Since the pelican's pouch can hold three times more fish than its stomach, only a portion of the catch can be eaten at one time. The surplus fish is stored in the pelican's esophagus, leaving the pouch empty and the pelican ready for further action.

Newborn baby pelicans dine on what they must regard as a delicious diet of regurgitated fish, which their parents bring to the nest. When the chicks are older, but have not yet perfected their own fishing skills, the parent pelicans let the youngsters eat fish from their pouches.

Outside of man, pelicans have few natural enemies. Occasionally a hungry shark happens to be in the vicinity when a pelican makes its dive into the sea, but this happens only rarely.

Man, however, has been a serious threat to the brown pelican. Around the turn of the twentieth century, pelicans were extensively hunted for their feathers, which were used to adorn women's clothing, especially hats. Pelicans were also hunted for food with nesting sites being invaded by people gathering eggs and capturing newly hatched chicks too young to fly to safety. This practice was common in the Virgin Islands during subsistence days, but has since ceased now that Virgin Islanders no longer have to survive on subsistence activities as well as the fact that the brown pelican has been protected under both American and British Virgin Islands laws.

The most severe threat to pelicans came from the use of DDT as a pesticide in the 1940s. Pelicans that ate fish contaminated with this poison began to lay eggs with shells so thin that they broke before the baby chicks were hatched. The situation became so serious that by the 1970's the brown pelican was in danger of extinction. A sad example of this fact was the disappearance of the Brown Pelican from the state of Louisiana where pelicans were once so plentiful that they were honored as the official state bird.

In 1972 the use of DDT was banned in the United States. Pelicans in the Virgin Islands, however, were spared the devastation of DDT poisoning, as this pesticide was never widely used here.

The brown pelican achieved official government protected under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and today, with the benefit of governmental protection and the more intelligent use of pesticides, the brown pelican population is again on the rise throughout the range of its habitat.

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