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How Oregon and Columbia River
White Pelican Population Keeps Growing

by Josephine Woolington
The Oregonian, December 7, 2024

Pelicans spotted on the coast in the last several years could have been birds that abandoned
their nests on the Great Salt Lake in 2023 when the colony collapsed because of low water levels.

In Central Oregon, a white pelican swims the water of Crane Prairie in 2021. (Rosemarie Stein photo) A faint flash of white, then nothing. A circle of odd floating specs, then, again, nothing.

American white pelicans in flight appear and reappear, their massive white and black-tipped wings tilting as they gently glide on thermals, sending the birds high in the sky. They've been known to confuse observers who have reported them as UFOs.

They've also in recent years confused fishers and scientists as they've appeared in large numbers along the Columbia River and Washington and Oregon coasts.

Around 2010, Jeremy Thompson, then a wildlife biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, first noticed a few individual pelicans on the Columbia River, near The Dalles.

"Those numbers have just continued to grow," says Thompson, who now works as the department's energy coordinator. "We don't know exactly why."

In 1994, white pelicans established a breeding colony upriver of The Dalles, on an island within McNary National Wildlife Refuge -- the first time they'd nested in Washington in 50 years.

The colony is now home to 5,000 breeding adult pelicans, according to a 2024 population estimate by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Pelicans formed a smaller colony downriver in 2010, on an island in the Columbia River Estuary.

Birds seen in spring and summer between those two colonies on the Columbia River are likely 1- to 2-year-olds that cannot yet breed, or older adults that opt not to nest in a given year.

"We're kind of wedged right in between those two breeding colonies, which is probably what makes it attractive to those birds," Thompson says of the pelicans spotted around The Dalles.

The colony at the Columbia River Estuary, though, has been off-and-on. The birds have abandoned it a handful of times in the last decade, likely after being disturbed by humans or predators, such as bald eagles or coyotes.

Protection status

Pelicans have a long history in the western United States but suffered in the late 19th century when their wetland habitats were transformed into cities and farms, and hunters shot them for sport.

In California, 90% of their habitat disappeared, reducing the 11 known breeding colonies to just one by 1932.

Like eagles and peregrine falcons, white pelicans were also poisoned by DDT. Their eggs became flimsy and couldn't support chicks.

They weren't federally listed under the Endangered Species Act, but in 1981, the state of Washington listed them as endangered.

Since the federal government banned DDT and protected pelicans under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in 1972, the birds have made a remarkable comeback in the West.

They're now considered a "sensitive" species in both Washington and Oregon.

Where to spot white pelicans

Unlike brown pelicans, which stick to coastal waters year-round, white pelicans typically nest inland in spring and summer on isolated islands within freshwater lakes or rivers, from southern Oregon's saline lakes in Klamath, Lake and Harney counties to the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

Come winter, white pelicans head south to central and southern California, southwestern Arizona and Mexico.

Dozens of the conspicuous white birds migrate through the Portland area in late August. This year, about 150 pelicans stopped to rest at a small lake in North Portland. They can be seen in spring and summer around the Portland area, specifically at Sauvie Island's Sturgeon Lake, where they've taken up residence, though they don't nest there.

A small number of the birds have also started wintering along the Columbia River, near The Dalles.

Travelers driving through Oregon's Wasco County on Interstate 84 are likely to see, at any time of year, at least one white pelican floating on the river, close enough to see their long, neon-orange bill tucked in toward their chest.

White pelicans have become an increasingly common coastal visitor in the Pacific Northwest during breeding season, says Allison Anholt, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's lead biologist for shorebirds and colonial waterbirds.

Sightings on eBird, an online bird observation database, show that most white pelican spottings on the coast have occurred recently, within the past four years. They've been observed in high counts at Tillamook and Netarts bays on the Oregon Coast, and farther north, in Washington's Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor.

They're seen throughout Puget Sound now, too, in groups of anywhere from 10 to 100 birds.

"When they should be breeding, they're instead hanging out at the coast," says Anholt. Drought and water management may be pushing the birds farther west toward more reliable salt water, according to Anholt. When the pelicans' preferred inland lakes dry up in some years, land bridges form, giving predators like coyotes access to their nests.

Anholt wonders whether some of the pelicans spotted on the coast in the last several years could have been birds that abandoned their nests on the Great Salt Lake in 2023 when the colony collapsed because of low water levels.

"Pelicans want fish, and they want islands where they're safe from predators," says Anholt. "We have both of those things out at the coast, potentially."

Pelicans and salmon

Thompson wonders whether pelicans on the Columbia River have been feasting on the abundance of American shad, an anadromous fish native to the Atlantic coast but introduced in the Columbia in the late 1800s.

The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated that 10 million to 20 million shad may travel up the Columbia River annually.

While pelicans' diet consists mostly of carp and suckers, the birds are opportunistic and will eat whatever small fish is close by, whether that's shad or endangered salmon.

The two pelican colonies along the Columbia River don't appear to have a significant effect on mortality of juvenile salmon, according to a 2022 Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife report. But they may impact specific runs along tributaries of the Columbia River.

The Yakama Nation is studying pelicans' feeding habits in the Yakima River during spring and early summer in an attempt to estimate the amount of juvenile salmon and steelhead they consume.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife will conduct a white pelican population study over the next two years, as part of a larger survey of pelicans throughout the Pacific Flyway, one of four North American bird migration routes.

The hope is that biologists might better understand why the birds have taken up new coastal residences, and whether or not they're nesting.

"What they're doing is a question yet to be answered," says Anholt, "and I'm really excited to try to answer that over the new couple of years."

Related Pages:
Pelican Feeding Habits Monitored at McNary by Anna King, Tri-City Herald, 7/18/3


Josephine Woolington is a writer and musician living in her hometown of Portland. She writes about the environment and Indigenous affairs for High Country News and other publications.
How Oregon and Columbia River White Pelican Population Keeps Growing
The Oregonian, December 7, 2024

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