The solution of any mystery invariably begets new riddles; such is the case with the mystery of the starving brown pelicans in which starvation, it turns out, has been determined to be the culprit that claimed the lives of more than 200 of these acrobatic dive-bombers over the past two months off the coast of Southern California. What makes this more mystifying still is the fact that anchovies — on which brown pelicans feed — have been found in great abundance in coastal waters.
This is the official finding of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife that’s spent the better part of two months trying to figure out what’s caused more than 700 of these once endangered birds to wash up on shore so emaciated that they lack the ability to maintain their capacity for waterproofing, without which they’d die of hypothermia.
State biologists determined that domoic acid — associated with red tides — was not to blame, nor was any variant of the avian flu.