Brown Pelican Removed From U.S. Endangered Species List

The brown pelican, a bird once prized by hunters for its feathers and later imperiled by rampant pesticide use, has “fully recovered” and no longer requires federal protection, the U.S. Interior Department announced. Populations of the bird — a fixture in Florida, the Gulf Coast states and along the Pacific coast — have reached more than 650,000 in North and Central America. That marks a stark contrast to decades ago, when a combination of hunting and the use of the pesticide DDT — which weakened pelican eggs, causing them to hatch prematurely — had decimated the species. Pelican populations at one time had dipped as low as 10,000. The bird was declared endangered in 1970. A ban on the general use of DDT in 1972 was a key step in the recovery, federal officials said. “It has taken 36 years, the banning of DDT and a lot of work,” said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, “but today we can say that the brown pelican is back.” Removal from the endangered species list means that officials will no longer be required to consider effects on the bird when reviewing construction projects.