The Ocean is my World

On St Thomas, my friends and I visited a place called Coral World. The pelicans were not part of the park, but they were a lot of fun to watch. Coral World has an underwater observatory where you can see wild fish underwater. To make sure there are lots of fish for visitors to see, the staff feed them every day. The pelicans have noticed the abundance of fish here and spend lots of time dive-bombing the area!

Today, June 8, is World Ocean Day. The day is meant to help people learn and remember how important the ocean is to every one of us, even if we live inland. The ocean provides oxygen, water, food, and medicine for us. It helps regulate our climate and acts as a buffer against pollution. In addition, the ocean is just plain beautiful.

Brown pelicans have struggled to survive against many human-made challenges. In the 19th century, it was fashionable for women to wear hats adorned with flashy feathers. Pelicans were hunted and killed for this purpose. Later on, people discovered a cheap source of food - pelican eggs. Before factory farming existed, eggs were hard to come by. Since pelicans nested in colonies, it was relatively easy to harvest their eggs. During WWI, fishermen overfished sardines and then blamed it on the pelicans. They used this excuse to slaughter pelicans. In the 1960s, brown pelicans nearly became extinct due to DDT making their egg shells very thin. Brown pelicans are unique because they don't sit on their eggs to incubate them. Instead, they stand on their eggs, using the webbing between their toes to keep the eggs warm. Due to the presence of DDT, a majority of pelican eggs cracked before they were ready to hatch.

Despite this dismal history, and despite nearly nearing extinction, brown pelicans have made a comeback and are now listed as a Least Concern animal by the IUCN. This is due to the efforts of people and organizations like Teddy Roosevelt, the Audubon Society, and Rachel Carson.
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However, pelicans are once again facing a human-made challenge - the oil spill in the Gulf. Every day, volunteers are finding birds that look like this along the coastline.

Do your part! It can be as involved as going to the coast to help clean up wildlife, or it can be as simple as trying to use less plastic bags (a petroleum byproduct) in your everyday life. There are more great ideas in this news article!

More brown pelicans:


Brown pelican
Coral World, St Thomas, USVI