Brown Pelican Suffers From Possible Botulism

The following story about a brown pelican was submitted by the Florida Keys Wild Bird Center in Florida.

This juvenile brown pelican was admitted to the Florida Keys Wild Bird Center in early March 2021. The pelican was found near the water not flying or moving very much.

Upon initial examination it was noted that the patient was knuckling, not standing very well, had a pouch infection, and was very emaciated. Because of these symptoms, the pelican was a suspected botulism case.

In order to combat the dehydration and emaciation, we gave multiple dilutions of EmerAid IC Piscivore until the patient was receiving it at full strength. We started with a day of EmerAid consisting of 75%, 80%, 90%, and 100% strength feeds.

After the day of EmerAid, the pelican began standing and seemed more alert. We switched to a fish smoothie blend for feedings at this point, then moved to whole fish after a few days.

There was a small wound on the top of the patient’s beak that needed to heal up, and he needed to put on some weight. It took a little over a month to reach satisfactory results.

The initial weight of this pelican was 1.85 kilograms (about 4 pounds), and by release the weight was 3.45 kilograms (about 7.6 pounds), which is much closer to the average weight of juvenile brown pelicans.