White Pelican injured by a shotgun blast
May 2011 Wildlife Rescue
Sadly there is a stretch of Klamath River near Keno that has had at least three white pelicans seriously injured in the last two in a half weeks. Two of have died and one of those was a confirmed gun shot wound. The third had a head injury but as of 6/3/11 was able to swim and fly fine so we let him stay in the wild and are monitoring him to be sure he recovers well.
Below is a video we put together so you can appreciate what goes on when we do a wildlife rescue of an animal in the water.
White Pelican Wildlife Rescue Video
Video Transcript
In May of two thousand eleven Badger Run Wildlife Rehab recieved a call about a white pelican down on the Klamath river
just outside the town of Keno.
We called together several volunteers and were able to put four boats in the water and still have several volunteers on shore to corral this bird if we were able to get him to cooperate. Our goal is always to do this with a minimum amount of stress to the animal and keeping volunteer safety in mind.
It took us a few minutes to get up river past the bird and start driving him down towards those folks standing on shore. For the most part the pelican
cooperated very nicely apparently way too tired to avoid our efforts with much enthusiasm.
We were able to get him up on shore, get him safely into a crate and transport him to the veterinarian. Unfortunately his wing had been blown apart, probably by a shotgun blast and the veterinarians despite their best efforts were unable to save him since the wound had gone septic.
