An investigation into the deaths of five pelicans in Frenchtown on Dec. 26, has so far turned up nothing concrete, according to an official from the Department of Planning and Natural Resources (DPNR).
Austin Callwood, DPNR’s environmental enforcement director with the Division of Fish and Wildlife, said Monday, "We are conducting an investigation internally, and we are going back to Frenchtown to ask questions to ascertain if anyone saw anything related to the pelicans’ deaths. There is a lot of finger-pointing, but nothing concrete."
Callwood, however, was candid in expressing disappointment in the manner in which his staff handled the initial incident.
"The enforcement officer responding to the incident did not retrieve the dead birds from a nearby dumpster so they could be examined for toxicity," he said.
The birds had been gathered and placed in a plastic bag by one of the fishermen, who was distraught at their discovery.
"A law enforcement officer needs facts," Callwood said. "At this point, it’s time to recover from a poorly handled situation. No matter how I cut it, we didn’t do it as well as we should have, gathering and collecting evidence.
"We learned a hard lesson in terms of these particular birds," he said. "There is no hard evidence to link any individual to the crime—and we do consider it a crime—or to take us any further right now."
On the brighter side of things, Steve Turbe, the fisherman who has fed the pelicans for years, said Monday that all is not lost. "Two other birds came over today and they were eating from my hand, so they know me. One was a female, so she’d probably been nesting on Dutch Cap or one of the North Side cays."
Callwood asks that anyone with information on the incident, call him at the Department of Planning and Natural Resources 774-3320.