FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Public Affairs Office, 504-862-2201
July 5, 2000
Brown pelicans find new home, swarming on artificial islands built by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Bird Islands, near Mississippi River mouth, built with material
from dredging to maintain Baptiste
Collette navigation channel
NEW ORLEANS
– Pelicans nesting. Pelicans flying. Pelicans swimming. Pelicans by the thousands. Not only that, these teeming birds belong to the
endangered species known as the brown pelican.
The scene is
the Baptiste Collette Bird Islands, landforms created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
near the mouth of the Mississippi River. On one 24-acre island Pelecanus occidentalis has chosen to stage a
comeback this year from the ravages of Hurricane Georges in 1998.
“We
estimate the number of breeding pairs of brown pelicans to be in the realm of 11,000 (on
Plover Island),” said Sam Hamilton, Atlanta-based Southeast Regional director of the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“I
doubt there’s a greater concentration of pelicans anywhere along the Gulf of
Mexico,” said Hamilton, a recent visitor to Plover Island.
The six Bird
Islands exist thanks to a Corps of Engineers program known as beneficial use of dredged
material. It helps the environment, by
creating wetlands or wildlife habitat, as a byproduct of keeping the navigation channels
open.
“This island is an excellent example of beneficial use of dredged material,” Hamilton said. “Eggs were hatching while we were there, and young pelicans were in the nest.”
The
Corps’ navigation dredging averages 83 million cubic yards a year in south Louisiana
– the territory of the Corps’ New Orleans District. This volume equals one third
of Corps of Engineers dredging nationwide.
A growing
proportion of this dredged material is put to beneficial use. The Corps estimates that beneficial use has grown
to an average of about 20 million cubic yards a year or roughly 25 percent of the
material.
“In
addition to beneficial use – which derives from the maintenance of navigation
channels – the Corps has a growing number of programs devoted entirely to
environmental purposes,” said Col. Thomas Julich, district engineer of the New
Orleans District.
“All of
these activities, and those of other federal and state agencies, are vital to the future
of Louisiana, which has 40 percent of U.S. coastal marshes and 80 percent of the
loss,” Julich said. “The area has prolific fisheries.”
The New Orleans District dredges more than any other Corps district because of navigation’s importance. The district includes the largest port complex in America, and has five of the top 11 U.S. ports, on the lower Mississippi and Calcasieu rivers, and other navigation channels.
The dredged
material that built the six Bird Islands was pumped through a pipeline from Baptiste
Collette Bayou, a 10-mile channel 85 river miles below New Orleans. This waterway connects
the Mississippi River eastward with Breton Sound and the Gulf of Mexico.
The Bird
Islands form a chain about 2.5 miles long that parallels the seaward end of the Baptiste
Collette Bayou channel.
Baptiste
Collette Bayou is dredged annually. Beneficial use of the dredged material began in 1977,
said Dr. Linda G. Mathies, a biologist in the Corps’ New Orleans District.
“Overall,
the Corps’ maintenance dredging program has created more than 7,000 acres of wetlands
since 1985, in Atchafalaya Bay, Southwest Pass at
the main
steamship mouth of the Mississippi River, Baptiste Collette and other areas,” Mathies
said.
Baptiste
Collette Bayou is opposite Venice, an offshore-oil and fishing port whose vessels use the
waterway. Other users include the nation’s largest offshore sulfur mine and hunters.
In addition,
Baptiste Collette is sometimes crucial to inland barges and towboats – during
closures of the Industrial Canal Lock at New Orleans, which links the river with the
eastbound Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.
“Although
brown pelicans routinely use the Baptiste Collette Bird Islands for resting habitat, prior
to this year they were not known to nest on any of the Bird Islands,” said Edward
Creef, a Corps biologist in the New Orleans District.
However,
Hurricane Georges in September 1998 virtually obliterated the pelicans’ nearby home,
Grand Gosier Island. Located in the
Chandeleur Island chain, this barrier island has long been a major nesting ground.
The Corps of
Engineers, meanwhile, is planning a project to restore Grand Gosier Island under the
Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act.
This project would also use Corps-dredged material from a navigation channel. It is
hoped that both Grand Gosier and Plover islands will be primary nesting areas for brown
pelicans in the future.
Back in the
1960s, brown pelicans were wiped out in coastal Louisiana by a class of chemicals known as
chlorinated hydrocarbons, such as DDT, said Lafayette-based David Frugé, the Louisiana
chief of Ecological Services for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“Improved
pesticide regulation, as well as protection and restocking efforts, have been the key to
the continuing recovery of this species. The
brown pelican has been removed from the endangered species list in Florida and Alabama,
but is still listed as endangered in the remainder of the Gulf region as well as in
California,” Frugé said.
So, how can
brown pelicans be thriving and remain endangered? Well,
the word from Washington is that recovery of the brown pelican may get further
recognition.
“The
Service may consider proposing de-listing for the Gulf population of the brown
pelican,” a Washington spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said.
The brown
pelican is one of seven pelican species. It is the smallest of the family, 42 to 54 inches
long, 8 to 10 pounds in weight and a 6˝ to 7˝ foot wingspread.
The pelican
is a flying fishing boat with a built-in dip net. As limericist Dixon Lanier Merritt
wrote, “A wonderful bird is the pelican/His bill can hold more than his
belican.” The pelican is also a biologic
version of what aeronautical people call a
wing-in-ground-effect craft or WIG. By
flying within less than one wingspan above the water, pelicans and WIGs stay aloft using
about half of the energy required at higher altitudes.
Finally,
it’s for good reason that the brown pelican is Louisiana’s state bird. It loves seafood, consuming up to four pounds of
fish a day, including sheepshead, mullet, menhaden and, on occasion, shrimp.
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Attached. Color photo of pelicans, color photo of
Bird Islands (aerial) and locator map. Available
for download with two more pelican photos at
http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/pao/releases/pelican.htm
Sonar channel surveys. New Orleans District’s
latest hydrographic surveys of waterways. On-line
maps and surveys, including Baptiste Collette, at
http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/ops/odt/nav-cond.htm
South Louisiana dredging facts. http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/pao/visitor/maintdredge1.htm