Our website incorporates technologies that enhance accessibility at all times. By following these guidelines, we ensure that our website is accessible to individuals with visual impairments, motor impairments, cognitive disabilities, and more. These guidelines provide instructions on how to make web content accessible to people with various disabilities. To achieve this goal, we strive to adhere closely to the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. Therefore, we are dedicated to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of their circumstances or abilities. We strongly believe in the importance of making the Internet available and accessible to everyone. Still, they are threatened by habitat loss due to flooding or drainage of lakes, disturbances to breeding colonies and retaliation for preying on fish in commercial hatcheries.Īccessibility Statement Compliance status: Today, due to protective legislation and increased public awareness, their numbers have recovered significantly. Their populations were alarmingly low by the mid-twentieth century due to hunting, chemical pesticides such as DDT and habitat loss. Status In The WildĪmerican white pelicans are listed as least concern by the IUCN, although this species is protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. Chicks form groups called crèches in order to stay warm and safe while parents are away searching for food. Although two eggs are laid typically only one chick survives after hatching. Two chalky white eggs are laid and incubated for about 30 days by both male and female birds. Pairs build nests nearby other pairs in similar breeding stages so that chicks will be relatively the same size when they hatch. Nests are sometimes lined with grasses but white pelicans to not usually forage for nesting materials. They use their beaks to dig wide, shallow depressions with an eight inch lip to keep water out. Birds pair up and both males and females create nests in open, flat soil. They have been known to hunt cooperatively to do this several birds line up and corral fish into shallow water where they are easily gulped up.īreeding occurs in the summer months after birds reach breeding colonies. Instead, they make shallow dives from the surface or just plunge their heads underwater. They are skilled swimmers but they do not plunge-dive for prey like their coastal relatives, the brown pelican. They are graceful fliers, often seen flying in a v-shaped formation and soaring using thermal currents. This is especially true during migration and breeding season, when colonies can reach up to several thousand birds. These pelicans are very social and usually found in large colonies. At the zoo their diet includes a variety of fish. They primarily feed on fish such as minnows, trout, carp, and catfish, but are also known to eat crustaceans and amphibians. They prefer freshwater rivers, lakes, marshes and bogs as well as saltwater estuaries. During winter they are found along the gulf coast from Florida to Mexico as well as the Pacific coast from central California to Central America. Summers are spent inland in scattered populations from British Colombia to Ontario and California to Minnesota. These highly migratory birds are found in both inland and coastal areas of North and Central America. These changes disappear by the fall molt. The skin around the eye, legs and feet turn a vivid red-orange and the birds grow a semi-circle “horn” near the end of the bill. Yellow feathers grow on their crown and chest. Juvenile American white pelicans are much darker in color, primarily brownish with a pale grey bill and dark crest on top of the head.īoth male and females white pelicans exhibit physical changes during breeding season. Aptly named, their feathers are bright white, except for black primary and secondary feathers that are only seen during flight. Their bill is long and flat with a pouch that can hold three gallons of water.
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