A pelican rescued from the 2010 oil spill, cleaned of oil and released in Georgia, has returned 700 miles to an island restored last year for pelicans and other seabirds.
It was among 5,000 oil-covered birds collected in and off Louisiana during the spill, and among 582 pelicans that were rehabilitated, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said in a news release Thursday.
Biologists don’t know just when it returned to Queen Bess Island. But a photo taken in March by a department biologist clearly shows the red band marked “33Z” that was put around the bird’s leg after its rescue on June 14, 2010, at the Empire jetties in Barataria Bay.
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