pelecaniform

Importance to humans

Most pelecaniform birds are of rather little significance to humans, but the guano (excrement) of cormorants, boobies, and pelicans is an important fertilizer. Exploitation of old accumulations of guano reached its peak in the mid-19th century, and since then only the current production of guano has been available in most areas, but even this provides a substantial resource where the bird populations are large. There were an estimated 18 million guano birds on the coast of Peru early in the 1960s. Of these, about 15 million were guanay cormorants (Phalacrocorax bougainvillii), and the remainder were Peruvian boobies (Sula variegata) and brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis). The harvest of guano at that time amounted to about 180,000 tons per year. The guano birds in the area feed largely on the Peruvian anchovy, and, now that this fish is directly exploited on a large scale for fish meal and fish oil, guano-producing birds have declined to fewer than five million animals. In Walvis Bay, Namibia, artificial platforms have been constructed in coastal lagoons and on an offshore reef, greatly facilitating the collection of guano.

Britannica Quiz

Wild Words from the Animal Kingdom Vocabulary Quiz

Some pelecaniforms are thought to compete with humans for fish. Cormorants are often accused of reducing sport fish populations, which engenders a strong negative backlash by anglers in both Europe and North America. Typically, cormorants are convenient scapegoats for poor fishing due to other causes. Increasingly, however, they have a negative impact on the fish populations of aquaculture ponds in the southeastern United States. Conversely, cormorants are used by fishermen in some countries (such as China and Japan) to catch fish, which they retrieve to a waiting boat; a collar prevents the cormorants from swallowing the fish for themselves.

Pelicans, feeding on fish from inland and coastal waters, are among the animals whose diet tends to ensure that they will accumulate residues of insecticides (especially DDT) in their bodies. Among the physiological effects of these substances on birds are changes in calcium metabolism that result in their laying eggs with abnormally thin shells or no shells at all; these eggs usually break before hatching. These effects prevented the successful reproduction of brown pelicans during the early 1970s on the coasts of California and the Gulf of Mexico in the United States, and their populations became endangered as a result. Since the ban on DDT went into effect in the United States at the end of 1972, brown pelicans have been able to rebound in substantial numbers.

Explore Britannica Premium!

The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.

SUBSCRIBE

Distribution and abundance

Pelecaniform birds occur all over the world except in parts of the interior of North America, Africa, Asia, and Australia, in the high Arctic, and in most of Antarctica. Two groups, the tropic birds and frigate birds, are essentially confined to the tropics; the boobies, pelicans, and anhingas are widespread in the tropics but also penetrate far into the temperate zones; and cormorants breed from the Equator to the Arctic Circle and the Antarctic Peninsula.

The tropic birds are the most pelagic (free-flying over open ocean) of the pelecaniforms and can be seen even in the most unproductive central parts of tropical seas. Some boobies and frigate birds are found far out at sea, but most of them return to land to roost at night. Pelicans, cormorants, and anhingas do not venture far from land but may commute some distance between roosting or breeding places and their feeding grounds.