A gray pelican (illustration) -

Richard Cummins / SUPERSTOCK / SIPA

Two pelicans flew from the Sigean African Reserve (Aude) and made their home far from their native land.

One of them took up residence in the salt marshes of Porto-Vecchio (Corse-du-Sud), while his brother moved to the Balearics.

Unheard of, in forty years, for these usually very sedentary birds.

They had lived with their parents in a colony since the opening of the reserve in the 1970s, said Antoine Joris, veterinarian of the animal park.

“He lost his mother to botulism, a bacterial disease, in September, when he had just left the nest and was still being fed by her,” he explains.

His father also contracted botulism so he was treated and released a few weeks later, but the two brothers were left for two weeks without their parents to feed them.

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In fine fettle

“Our hypothesis is that, finding themselves without their parents, they were a little confused and they went on an adventure.

They found themselves at sea and one went down to the south-east and the other due south, ”explains the veterinarian, adding that“ in forty years this is the first time that this has happened ”.

They are "strictly sedentary", "normally everyone stays around the Bages-Sigean pond".

And the two brothers are in great shape.

"We have news from both regularly and they are doing well", continues Antoine Joris.

“The plan is to fix them.

In Corsica, a veterinary assistant feeds him every day ”thanks to the donation of local fishermen of“ their unsold or unsaleable fish ”.

"As soon as transport is possible, we will go get it", probably around "February or March", said the caregiver, explaining that currently, with the avian flu epidemic, the transport of feathered animals is prohibited.

“In the Balearics, it's different, it is on a large body of water which is a nature reserve and it manages on its own.

This one will be more difficult to recapture.

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"We will do everything to bring them back here and reintegrate them into the colony because they are not intended to stay either in Corsica or in the Balearics" where there are "no pelicans at all", a- he specified, calling "not to approach it and especially not to feed it".

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