In October
2006, a pelican swallowed a live pigeon in St. James Park, London!
According
to tourists watching it, the pelican walked to the pigeon and grabbed it by its
beak, starting a 20 minute struggle which ended when the victim was
swallowed:"head first while flapping all the way down".
This
behavior has also been filmed in
a zoo in Ukraine.
In the Basel Zoo (Switzerland's largest zoo) a Great White Pelican named 'Killer
Jonny' (are you listening, Hollywood movie directors?) is hunting and eating any duck (or other smaller bird) that enters
the pelican exhibit. Today, there are rarely any ducks seen on the pelican lake,
while on all other bodies of water they are seen in normal numbers.
On the South African island of Malgas, biologist Marta de Ponte was the first to discover Great White
Pelicans eating Cape Gannet chicks. The
pelicans were then captured on film in a BBC documentary, exhibiting this behaviour. The same breed of pelican has been observed swallowing Cape cormorants, kelp gulls, swift terns & African penguins.
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