By Gordon Tokumatsu, NBCBayArea.com 
SAN PEDRO, Calif. — They’re turning up on roads, in backyards, beaches and marinas, say wildlife experts, starved and too exhausted to fly. They’re California brown pelicans, a species that once neared extinction a couple of decades ago. No one knows why so many of them have been found emaciated and dying, though — dozens since December, from Long Beach to the central coast. "They’re just so thin and fatigued and weak," said Erica Lander of the International Bird Research and Rescue Center. "It’s causing them to land in these unusual places." The center is already playing host to 40 of the distinctive looking birds, all being nursed back to health for release at a future date. Blood tests and necropsies on those that didn’t survive will hopefully determine why so many of the birds have been found in such a short amount of time. "We’re hoping to not only help the birds that are here in care, but to figure out what it is that’s going on," said Lander.
Cause of Dead Pelicans Baffles Calif. Rescuers
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Pelicans fall out of sky from Mexico to Ore.
Pelicans suffering from a mysterious malady are crashing into cars and boats, wandering along roadways and turning up dead by the hundreds across the West Coast, from southern Oregon to Baja California, Mexico, bird-rescue workers say.
By Pat Brennan
The Orange County Register
SANTA ANA, Calif. — Pelicans suffering from a mysterious malady are crashing into cars and boats, wandering along roadways and turning up dead by the hundreds across the West Coast, from southern Oregon to Baja California, Mexico, bird-rescue workers say.
Weak, disoriented birds are huddling in people’s yards or being struck by cars. More than 100 have been rescued along the California coast, according to the International Bird Rescue Research Center in San Pedro.
Hundreds of birds, disoriented or dead, have been observed across the West Coast.
“One pelican actually hit a car in Los Angeles,” said Rebecca Dmytryk of Wildrescue, a bird-rescue operation. “One pelican hit a boat in Monterey.”
While some of the symptoms resemble those associated with domoic-acid poisoning — an ocean toxin that sometimes affects sea birds and mammals — other symptoms do not. Domoic acid also apparently has not been found in significant amounts offshore, although more tests are needed.
Rescuers are wondering whether the illness is caused by a virus, or even by contaminants washed into the ocean after recent fires across Southern California. Many of the birds also have swollen feet.
“These birds are on the freeway, getting run over,” said Jay Holcomb, executive director of the rescue center in San Pedro. “A bunch we’ve seen have been hit. They’ve been landing on yards five miles inland. When some of the people have captured them in parking lots, they just sit in the corner. They just go pick them up.”
“Maybe the weather has been particularly difficult on them,” said Heather Nevill, a veterinarian tracking the problem for the International Bird Rescue Research Center. “Maybe the fish stocks are particularly low. It might be more than one thing, all coming together at once.”