The Louisiana Coastal Protection Restoration Authority says it has completed a multi-million-dollar project to enhance the presence of the Brown Pelican on Rabbit Island in Southwest Louisiana. Project Manager Todd Baker tells us the effort in Cameron Parsh has been much more successful than expected.
“We figured the numbers would go down to the 370 mark (for nests) and this is a number working with Wildlife and Fisheries that was developed and to our surprise, we had 61-hundred bird nests this year,” said Baker.
The Brown Pelican is Louisiana’s state bird and Baker says of all the nests observed on the island, there are 11-hundred-50 Brown Pelican nests on the island. A total of 12 species have been observed on the island, ten of them listed as “species of greatest conservation need.” Baker said the restoration project, paid for with Deepwater Horizon oil spill money is preserving the Brown Pelican in the state.
“It clearly shows you how limited really good nesting habitat is in the area, and the problem with Rabbit Island is it kept going underwater so if birds would have nests on their eggs they were frequently inundated and flooded out.”
Baker talks about the importance of the Brown Pelican, in addition to it being the official state bird of Louisiana.
“It’s also a bioindicator of the health of our wetlands in coastal Louisiana, so if we want to continue to have Brown Pelicans in the Pelican State then we need to provide habitat for those guys,” says Baker.
Baker says a portion of the 16.4 million dollars allocated to the project will help maintain the restoration effort in the years to come.
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