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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Big-mouthed Americans fleeing to Canada
2005-08-25
Thousands of American white pelicans that abandoned the Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge in central North Dakota after their chicks mysteriously died appear to have headed across the border to Canada, in southern Manitoba.

"Anything that holds water and fish seems have found a pelican, and even places that don't," said Ken DeSmet, an endangered species biologist for the Manitoba Conservation agency. "It's obvious that they are all over the place in areas you wouldn't normally see them."

"I'm sure they're Chase Lake birds," said Ken Torkelson, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Bismarck.
Yeah, I'd recognize them anywhere.
Biologists in both countries are baffled about the influx of the big white birds north of the border, and the exodus from the south. The white pelican colony at the Chase Lake refuge has been known as the largest in North America, peaking at 35,466 birds in 2000. The pelicans normally stay at the refuge through September, raising their young and feasting on crawfish, small fish and salamanders from small prairie ponds within a 100-mile radius of the refuge.

Most of the birds in Canada are about 300 miles from the North Dakota refuge, "as the pelican flies," DeSmet said.
And we all know how pelicans fly.
Pelicans have been spotted in Winnipeg in places never seen before, including rainwater containment ponds, Mooi said. Minnows put in the ponds to control mosquitos probably attracted them, he said. Radio transmitters attached to eight pelicans from the Upper Midwest this year showed that the birds traveled throughout the Dakotas, and as far away as Iowa, but none had headed north, Torkelson said.
Stealth pelicans?


So, is it:
1. Global warming?
2. Hatred of Bush?
3. Free health care?
4. Higher alcohol content in beer?
Posted by:Jackal

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