Originally published 2020-05-09.
Big Bird was a young great white pelican who lost his flock in a storm over Lake Tanganyika and washed up on the beach at Greystoke Mahale, a remote safari camp in western Tanzania. The camp's manager, Jeffrey Gordon, took him in. Because there were no adult pelicans around to show him the ropes, the staff ended up coaching him themselves: first encouraging him to fly, then taking him out by kayak so he could learn to catch fish on his own.
The pair's outings were filmed and shared widely, and they offer a charming look at how a wild bird picks up skills it would normally learn from its own kind.
A lakeside camp in chimpanzee country
Greystoke Mahale sits on the shore of Mahale Mountains National Park, on the eastern edge of Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania's Kigoma Region. The park, established in 1985, covers about 1,650 square kilometres and is best known for its chimpanzees; it protects the largest known population of eastern chimpanzees. There are no roads inside the park, so visitors arrive by boat and explore on foot.
Jeffrey Gordon managed the camp. Life there means sharing space with a wide variety of wildlife, but the animal that became his constant companion was a stray pelican.
How Big Bird arrived
According to the camp's account, as reported by Natural Habitat Adventures and Laughing Squid, Big Bird was a male about three months old when a powerful storm swept across the lake in early 2014 and separated him from his flock. He stumbled ashore near the camp, and the staff nursed him back to health.
Great white pelicans are huge birds. Adults can measure up to about 1.8 metres from bill to tail, with wingspans that can exceed three metres, and males are considerably heavier than females. In the wild, young pelicans fledge at around 65 to 75 days and then spend time near experienced adults while they become independent. Alone on a beach, Big Bird had nobody to follow.
Flying lessons on the beach
Before he could fish, Big Bird had to fly with confidence. Staff encouraged him by running up and down the beach flapping their arms. His early flights were short and wobbly, and he had trouble judging his speed, often coming in to land far too fast. With practice he got the hang of it.
One of the best-known clips of him, titled "Pelican Learns to Fly," was filmed with a small camera briefly strapped to his bill, giving viewers a bird's-eye tour over the lake.
Learning to fish from a kayak
Fishing was the bigger challenge. In the wild, great white pelicans usually feed cooperatively: a group of six to eight birds forms a horseshoe in shallow water, herds fish together and dips their bills in unison to scoop them up. An adult needs roughly 0.9 to 1.4 kilograms of fish a day. A lone youngster with no colony has no one to copy.
Gordon told the Financial Times that he started teaching Big Bird when the pelican was about a year old, because "he didn't have his colony to show him how." He had to catch fish for the bird anyway, so he began taking him along, hoping the outings would awaken his instincts.
The staff tried several tricks. Laughing Squid's report describes them pretending to be a fish in the water, tossing fish toward him, paddling him by kayak to good fishing spots and pointing out where other birds were diving, a sign of a shoal below. Big Bird began dragging his bill through the water and plunging his head under to search. He was also eager to grab anything Gordon caught, sometimes fish far too large for him; Gordon said he occasionally had to wrestle them back so the bird would not choke.
After around four weeks of evening kayak trips, Big Bird caught fish by himself. His success rate was modest, but Gordon was delighted, saying it was "great to see him trying."
Watch Big Bird's adventures
The kayak outings were filmed, and the footage shows the bird paddling alongside his human companions, peering into the water and making his first clumsy attempts at catching his own meal.
What this story does and does not teach
Big Bird's story is heart-warming, but it is not a recipe for raising wild birds. A few points are worth keeping in mind:
- Wild animals need specialist care. Pelicans have demanding diets and can be injured by unsuitable food or handling. If you find a stranded or injured bird, contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitator or local wildlife authority rather than trying to keep it.
- Independence is the goal. The camp's efforts focused on helping Big Bird fly and feed himself, which is what good rehabilitation aims for.
- Instinct does much of the work. People did not literally teach a pelican to fish. They gave him opportunities to practise, and his own instincts did the rest.
- Footage shows only part of the picture. A few minutes of video cannot reveal everything about an animal's welfare or long-term needs.
What the story does show is how patience and attention can give a young animal a second chance. A storm cut Big Bird off from the birds who would normally have raised him, and a small team on a remote lakeshore stepped in to fill the gap, one kayak trip at a time.
Sources: Quotes from Jeffrey Gordon as reported by the Financial Times; camp account summarised by Natural Habitat Adventures and Laughing Squid; species facts from Wikipedia: Great white pelican; park facts from Wikipedia: Mahale Mountains National Park.
COMMENTS