4 Mo nth ly Bulletin 



IN DEFENSE OF THE PELICAN. 



All who know the Florida coast in winter will gratefully recall the 

 quaint and interesting pelicans which nest in colonies at various points along 

 shore. Their chief nesting-place is Pelican Island, in the Indian River, 

 where the Audubon Societies support a warden who guards the rookery. 

 This winter the fishermen of Florida, aided by other doubtless well-meaning 

 but ill-advised agencies, notably one Florida newspaper, have made a de- 

 termined attempt to get legal sanction for the destruction of the pelicans. 

 The claim is made, and the United States Food Commission at Washington 

 seems to have so little knowledge of birds that it has given the claim con- 

 sideration, that the pelicans are to blame for the great lack of food fishes 

 in Florida waters, where once they swarmed. 



The facts in the case are simple. The fishermen themselves are en- 

 tirely to blame for the lack of fish. They seine the shallow waters of the 

 Indian River and other bays and estuaries with shrimp seines and other 

 seines of so small a mesh that they sweep up millions of fish, which are 

 often killed in the net before it is brought to the surface. The fish caught 

 in this way have no market value, and are left behind to rot. 



The fish as a rule caught by the pelicans are not market fish. In the 

 nesting season the birds fly far to sea and catch and feed their young almost 

 entirely on small menhaden, which are not a food fish. At all times they 

 feed on surface fish, which, with the exception of the mullet, are not food 

 fishes. Such mullet as they catch represent the only loss, and these are 

 comparatively few. 



A generation ago, when there was no fishing done in Florida waters, 

 or, at any rate, no seineing for market, the Indian River and the shallow 

 waters of the whole Florida coast everywhere swarmed with fish of all sorts, 

 as any one who knew Florida at that time can testify. The pelicans and 

 other water-birds were then ten times as nmnerous as now. 



As a matter of fact, the fish-eating birds are a help rather than a hin- 

 drance to the depth-inhabiting fishes. Attacking the schools of shrimp, sar- 

 dines, minnows and other small surface swimmers, they drive them down 

 where the larger can readily reach them. It is a well-established biological 

 fact which should be widely known that in the balance of nature the surface- 

 feeding fish-eating birds are a help to the food fishes rather than a hindrance. 

 To exterminate the former would be to do harm to the latter. Massachusetts 

 people can have only an aesthetic or altruistic interest in the Florida pelicans. 

 Yet thousands of our people visit Florida every winter. It might not be a 

 bad idea for such to write to their Florida friends, explain the matter from 

 their point of view, and ask them to save the pelicans for them. They are 

 worth more to Florida as an attraction for winter visitors than, perhaps, the 

 Florida friends realize. 



