In this compelling book, Rien Fertel tells the story of humanity’s complicated and often brutal relationship with the brown pelican over the past century. This beloved bird with the mythically bottomless belly—to say nothing of its prodigious pouch—has been deemed a living fossil and the most dinosaur-like of creatures. The pelican adorns the Louisiana state flag, serves as a religious icon of sacrifice, and stars in the famous parting shot of Jurassic Park, but, most significantly, spotlights our tenuous connection with the environment in which it flies, feeds, and roosts—the coastal United States.

In 1903, Theodore Roosevelt inaugurated the first national wildlife refuge at Pelican Island, Florida, in order to rescue the brown pelican, among other species, from the plume trade. Despite such protections, the ubiquity of synthetic “agents of death,” most notably DDT, in the mid-twentieth century sent the brown pelican to the list of endangered species. By the mid-1960s, not one viable pelican nest remained in all of Louisiana. Authorities declared the state bird locally extinct.

Conservation efforts—including an outlandish but well-planned birdnapping—saved the brown pelican, generating one of the great success stories in animal preservation. However, the brown pelican is once again under threat, particularly along Louisiana’s coast, due to land loss and rising seas. For centuries, artists and writers have portrayed the pelican as a bird that pierces its breast to feed its young, symbolizing saintly piety. Today, the brown pelican gives itself in other ways, sacrificed both by and for the environment as a bellwether bird—an indicator species portending potential disasters that await.

Brown Pelican combines history and first-person narrative to complicate, deconstruct, and reassemble our vision of the bird, the natural world, and ourselves.

Out now from LSU Press, and available from all booksellers.


Tour Dates:

September 22, 2022 — Blue Cypress Books, New Orleans, 6-7:30pm

September 29, 2022 — Wild Child Wines, Lafayette, LA, 5:30-7:30pm

October 15, 2002 — interviewing C.W. Cannon, about his new book of essay, I Want Magic, Blue Cypress Books, New Orleans, 5-6:30pm

October 27, 2022 — Pass Christian Books, Pass Christian, MS, 6-7pm

October 29, 2022 — Louisiana Book Festival, Baton Rouge, 11-11:45am

November 10, 2022 — East Bank Regional Library, Metairie, LA, 7-8:30pm

December 01, 2022 — Loa Bar, New Orleans, 5:30-7:30pm

December 04, 2022 — Baton Rouge Gallery Sundays@4, 1515 Dalrymple Dr., Baton Rouge, 4-6pm

December 10, 2022 — Preservation Resource Center’s Holiday Book Fest, Louise S. McGehee Student Center, 2343 Prytania St., New Orleans, 12:30-1

January 28, 2023 — Walter Anderson Museum of Art, Ocean Springs, MS, 11am-1pm

February 03, 2023 — Melba’s, New Orleans, 1525 Elysian Fields Ave., 12-1pm

February 09, 2023 — Baton Rouge Audubon Society, 6:30-8pm

March 2, 2023 — Page and Palatte Bookstore, Fairhope, AL, 6-8pm

March 11, 2023 — New Orleans Book Festival, Tulane University, 12-12:45pm

March 25, 2023 — Tennessee Williams Festival, New Orleans, 2:30-3:45pm

March 31, 2023 — Books Along the Teche Literary Festival, New Iberia, LA, 1:45-2:45pm

August 19, 2023 — Mississippi Book Festival, Jackson, 9:30am

January 27, 2024 — Homegrown: A Writers’ Exchange, Hancock Performing Arts Center, Kiln, MS, 1:05pm

March 28, 2024 — Eastside Audubon, Redmond, WA, 7-8pm

Reviews:

“As much a quiet meditation on a little-understood bird as it is a call to reconsider the way we, as humans, engage with the natural world.“ — Winner of Third Place in the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award, Society of Environmental Journalists 22nd Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment.

“Fertel makes the history of the Brown Pelican lyrical, weaving archival stories through scientific facts. My favorite aspect of Brown Pelican is just that: You come to learn about the bird, and you leave realizing how often we make birding more about ourselves than about our wing-flapping neighbors.” — American Birding Association

“Brief enough to finish at cruising altitude but meaty enough to chew on long after, Brown Pelican is an engaging history of humankind’s complicated, at times shameful relationship with a remarkable species.” — Audubon Magazine

“Fertel clearly had fun following the pelican’s ‘career’ through library and swamp, and the resulting blend of history, culture, and anecdote has the appealing energy of a conversation with someone who has just learned something interesting.” — Binge-Worthy Books of 2022, Country Roads

“A beautiful little book. It feels like an essential in a Louisiana home library. It would be the perfect gift for the Louisiana book lover who has everything else.” — Louisiana Books We Love in 2022, Baton Rouge Advocate

Interviews and Readings:

“I might have been the fish the brown pelican swallowed.” — an excerpt from 64 Parishes

C-SPAN recording of the Nature and the Environment panel at the 2023 Mississippi Book Festival

“Brown pelican stars as harbinger for Louisiana in new book” — Tulane News

“Brown Pelican Taking a Dive” — a discussion with Errol Laborde on the Louisiana Life podcast

LSU Press Facebook Live Author Series

“The World in a Bird” — a short essay about the making of the book

WWNO’s The Reading Life, with Susan Larson

“The Pelican Holds Everything” — a discussion on the re: Wild podcast