Pelicans Detained On Suspicion of Public Intoxication

July 29, 2008

This week at Discovery News you can read about how a treeshrew subsists on a nature-brewed beer. It seems that nectar from naturally boozy plants has been around for at least 55 million years, suggesting that our primate and other animal ancestors weren't teetotalers. The treeshrew might even be a bit tipsy all of the time, feeling a happy buzz after it slurps up the nectar, which even froths and smells like beer. But flat out drunkenness in the wild, as for human societies, isn't desirable. Aside from the health problems it can cause, imagine what a hungry wolf or bear must have thought in the caveman days if it stumbled upon a giddy, incoherent human. You're right- an easy dinner.

A favorite story about naturally intoxicated animals has to do with California brown pelicans that went on quite a spree in Laguna Beach after they had consumed some bad red algae. Bad sort of like the stuff that Woodstock concert goers were advised to avoid back in the late 60's.

A bunch of the befuddled birds were found wandering the Southern California streets in a daze. One allegedly flew "under the influence" into a car windshield as the startled driver was trying to go down the Coast Highway. Four of the birds actually were "detained in an animal drunk tank," according to local reports. During the incident, a wildlife center received at least 16 calls from people reporting "suspicious bird behavior."

This was not an isolated incident either. In 1961, a particularly large outgrowth of the algae, which contains the culprit toxic chemical, domoic acid, led to thousands of out-of-their-minds birds flying around terrified Northern California residents in August 1961. (Domoic acid, by the way, is the same thing that causes amnesic shellfish poisoning, which killed one of my uncles, who was a fisherman. Like birds, you should definitely avoid it.)

Alfred Hitchcock, who spent a lot of time in the area, just happened to make his classic film, "The Birds," two years after the 1961 incident. So, the next time you sit up with your family or friends to watch this horror film on the late show, you can tell them that it all started with a bunch of intoxicated waterbirds that ate too much bad algae.