Recent brown pelican die-offs in California reveal regional risks for a delisted species. See photos.
An outdoor enclosure at International Bird Rescue’s Northern California location gives brown pelicans access to a pool and sprinklers while they recuperate in June 2024.
“STEP HERE BEFORE ENTERING, PLEASE,” told me, pointing to a shoe-sanitizing mat, as we approached an outdoor enclosure at the (IBR) San Francisco Bay-Delta Wildlife Center in June of last year. The precaution was deadly serious. For months the center had been inundated with sick birds.
An emblem of the California coast and a success story of the Endangered Species Act, the brown pelican was delisted in 2009 after 39 years amid rebounding populations. But as carcasses accumulated along California beaches in April 2024—in a tragic déjà vu of a die-off two years earlier—state labs received more than 40 deceased birds from 10 coastal counties for testing. Pathologists ruled out avian influenza and other diseases. The pelicans were simply starving.
Climate-driven weather events and warming oceans may be pushing the birds’ primary food sources—including anchovies and sardines—into deeper, cooler waters, beyond pelican access. “Pelicans cannot dive underwater but rather reach down with their bills after plunging, so feeding is limited to about the top 3 to 5 feet of water,” says , director of research and veterinary science for IBR. Overfishing also may be a factor: California’s sardine populations have plummeted 98 percent in the past two decades—a decline so severe the conservation group successfully sued federal agencies for failing to recover the fish in a just as the 2024 pelican die-off began.
Brown pelicans enjoyed a strong 2025 nesting season on California’s Channel Islands, but as chicks prepared to fledge in April, the colony endured another blow. Domoic acid, a neurotoxin produced by algal blooms and supercharged by warming waters and nutrient runoff, poisoned the birds’ food supply. Pelicans that feed on infected fish can experience seizures, paralysis and lethal brain damage. IBR treated more than 100 California pelicans , and voiced concern over another potential die-off this year.
While global brown pelican populations remain stable for now, overfishing, climate change and Trump administration rollbacks of environmental protections could form a perfect storm, scientists say, undoing decades of progress. And yet, the individual birds “bounce back from near death so quickly,” Nesbitt says. “Their resilience is inspiring.” See a slideshow of photos below.
The National Wildlife Federation has long worked to conserve brown pelicans. Along with its California affiliate, , NWF is co-sponsoring a state bill that would extend into perpetuity a $30 million annual appropriation to the Habitat Conservation Fund in the California state budget.
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An outdoor enclosure at International Bird Rescue’s Northern California location gives brown pelicans access to a pool and sprinklers while they recuperate in June 2024.
Pelican remains with an apparent human-inflicted wound decompose on California’s Marina State Beach in June 2024. “We know from past experience that brown pelicans desperate for food will approach areas where people are present and get into trouble,” says IBR’s Rebecca Duerr, whose pelican surgeries have included stitching up bird pouches slashed in suspected acts of human cruelty. “Public fishing piers are habitat for fish, and if pelicans are foraging around piers, they can become entangled in fishing gear or, if really weak and desperate, they may land on the pier and beg for fish from people,” she says.
While anchovy numbers eventually improved along parts of the coast in 2024, helping feed recovering birds, long-term declines in sardine populations, paired with lower diversity of fish species, continue to exacerbate human–pelican conflicts.
“One of the biggest challenges during a brown pelican die-off is finding space for all the animals,” says Kelly Beffa, who, as manager of IBR’s San Francisco Bay-Delta Wildlife Center, was on the front line of 2024 bird rehabilitation. That requires “shifting from intensive individual care to more of a herd health approach, ensuring the overall well-being of the group while also maintaining the flow of animals from intake to release.”
By the time the 2024 die-off subsided in July, more than 1,000 emaciated and injured pelicans had been admitted to wildlife centers along the California coast. Of those treated by IBR’s San Francisco Bay-Delta location, 75 percent were rehabilitated and released back into the wild. A healthy brown pelican glides over Elkhorn Slough in May 2024.
To continue monitoring bird health, the IBR team bands pelicans. “We can keep track of these animals after release [such as in Sausalito, pictured, in June 2024], furthering our knowledge of how successful we can be at rehabilitating them,” Beffa says.
Birds preen in San Francisco Bay after their June 2024 release. “Working with pelicans is truly special,” Beffa says, "not just for the birds in our care but for the greater ecosystem as well.”
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