GREAT OUTDOORS: White pelicans could be Lake Erie's next 'cormorant'

With sightings of white pelicans in Western Lake Erie becoming more common the past few years, I cannot help but wonder how long it will take for their population to increase to what some may perceive as nuisance levels. After all, when the double-crested cormorant first nested on West Sister Island in 1992 after about a 40-year absence in Ohio, it was celebrated because its return showed that Lake Erie's pollution levels had subsided enough to allow them to reproduce here again. But within a decade, their numbers increased to levels that were causing defoliation not only to West Sister Island, but on several others, too, notably Green Island in Ohio and East Sister and Middle islands in Ontario. Charter boat captains and other anglers expressed concern over the numbers of fish that the birds were consuming. Each adult bird can eat 4 pounds of fish daily, multiplied by a population in the thousands. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issues depredation permits that allow wildlife agencies to thin the numbers of cormorants to protect fish populations and nesting habitats of rarer bird species. In the Upper Midwest and Great Plains, many people hate white pelicans, which now number in the tens of thousands in dozens of colonies in the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho, California and some Canadian Prairie provinces. The Idaho wildlife department culled that state's pelican population specifically to spare vulnerable populations of trout species. White pelicans cannot dive underwater, so they feed in shallow water by dipping their bills under the water's surface in wetlands, where they commute daily. With 9-foot wingspans, they look like a white, triangular-shaped kite, lined with black on the wing edges as they fly overhead. Commercial catfish farmers in the Southeast watch as the pelicans migrate each spring and descend on their ponds, feed upon their crops and introduce fish parasites through their droppings. A Minnesota farmer destroyed thousands of pelican eggs in a large nesting colony because of losses to his corn crop that he blamed on the nesting birds. The neighbors applauded his efforts, after tiring of dealing with the waste that the birds produced, similar to complaints heard when Canada geese and cormorants densely gather locally. White pelican range maps indicate that Ohio falls only in their migration route, not their breeding range. However, there have been reports of some of them attempting to nest on Lake Erie islands in Ontario, including Middle Island and Big Chicken Island. They nest on the ground, laying one or two eggs in a shallow depression on remote islands and readily abandon them if disturbed. The older, larger bird usually kills its sibling, leaving one chick for the pair of parents to raise. Each chick requires about 150 pounds of fish from the time they hatch until they can forage on their own. I have seen dozens of pelicans at a time flying over while fishing around the islands and the Western Basin during the summer and fall. Hundreds were photographed last summer as they rested on the water between Sugar and Middle Bass islands. Hundreds also gathered in Middle and East Harbors in early November. Last weekend, I saw small flocks in the air as I crossed Muddy Creek on State Route 53. Nationally, their population is increasing at about 3% per year. The species is still somewhat of a novelty on Lake Erie, so it is likely to take some time before the population grows enough to cause resentment by fishermen here.