More Than 30 Pelicans Have Been Mutilated on California's Beaches

[douglas9]

Since March, dozens of brown pelicans appear to have been seriously injured by a person or people in Orange County, conservationists said.

The lifeguards in Orange County, Calif., brought the injured brown pelicans to the veterinarian one at a time, the birds’ large wings mutilated, their bones twisted and fractured.

Debbie Wayns and her colleagues at the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center, a nonprofit organization that works with injured wildlife, examined the birds and came to a conclusion about a likely cause: Someone had done it deliberately.

“It was just wrong on every level,” said Mrs. Wayns, the center’s operations manager. “There was no question that a person or persons did this.”

Since March, more than 30 pelicans have been attacked and injured along Orange County’s coastline, according to the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center. The attacks have spurred an investigation by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which is working with the local authorities to find the person or people responsible, Mrs. Wayns said.

Of the 32 brown pelicans that Mrs. Wayns and her team have treated since March, only 10 have survived, she said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/15/us/pelicans-killed-california.html

[Bluepinky]

1. How sad. There's a very twisted individual(s) out there.

Not sure how you would go about catching the culprit, maybe publicize each attack’s date and location, and appeal to the public for help? Maybe someone knows something.

[SheltieLover]

2. K&R!

[douglas9]

3. LA Times (1992)

Linda Evans has nursed back to health many brown pelicans who have been intentionally burned, strangled and mutilated. But she has never been as shaken by an act of cruelty as she was on the morning of March 26, when she received a call reporting that a young pelican had been crucified alive on a light pole.

“I was horrified. It’s a feeling that comes from an act so ugly and awful you can’t even describe what goes on inside you,” said Evans, who runs the Pacific Wildlife Center, a Laguna Niguel sea bird rescue center. “I don’t understand how someone can do that to a living thing.”

Ten years after nearly two dozen pelicans were found with their beaks hacked off in Dana Point Harbor, the mutilations have resumed--this time along the entire Southern California coastline.

From Santa Barbara to San Diego, authorities say that over the past six months they have received roughly 30 reports of serious atrocities involving the federally protected species, including:


https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-09-20-mn-2092-story.html

[2naSalit]

4. Shit like this is proof...

That our species doesn't deserve to survive the ecological collapse we have caused.

[ShazzieB]

5. How horrifying.

I sure hope they catch the low down, dirty, sadistic asshole(s) responsible for this. It makes my blood boil.