Pelicans

How many pounds of fish can a pelican put away in one day?
There has to be 4-500 of the things on Isabel right now just constantly picking fish up.

An adult American White Pelican weighs about 20 lbs and consumes 3 lbs of small fish, salamanders, frogs, and aquatic insects each day.
This is what I read on a pelican web site. It will add up to quite a bit with 400-500 birds.

Ben

Did it happen to say how big a fish they can eat.
It seems that ever since these things have started visiting the lake that the crappie and sunfish fishing has gotten terrible!!!!!

Ever seen these things fish when they are in a group like this? It’s like a big net going though the water and the beaks are constantly going down. The fish have no place to hide.

A few years back on Lake Odessa we found a dying pelican with I’m guessing a 5lb bass stuck in it’s throat.

These people who’ll tell you they only eat shad and some other non essential fish are full of hooey. They are opportunistic feeders that will eat whatever they can catch. They are the main reason Odessa panfishing sucks for the last several years.

And they feed exactly the way Clarence described, chasing the fish to shallow water.

I’ve heard as high as 5lbs per day.

Any you guys that been eating cormorants want to post a recipe for pelican?

I saw a few hundred in North Lake today also. White Egrets too! I see an early fall in our future!!!

The pelicans are so thick here on pool 4 that I have had them come into the backwater where I am duck hunting in flocks so big that they actually fill the bay. They are very noisy when they feed. I don’t think many fish get by there gauntlet.
A couple years ago i found a dead one on the lake while duck hunting. It had gotten tangled in some Fireline that had a shad rap hooked to it. It was banded.