Pancho the Pelican apparently prefers the company of humans to his own kind and the grit of the big city to a life spent soaring through the breeze above the Caribbean Sea.
The wayward seabird has become the toast of 23rd Street, a bustling Havana thoroughfare where the 60cm-tall Pancho waddles down the sidewalk, wings spread and beak agape, as delighted children point and smoky 1950s Chevrolets rumble past.
He is on a first-name basis with neighbors who have come to see him as one of their own. Paperboys greet him each morning with cries of “Panchoooooo, the paaaaaaper’s here!”
“When I saw him, it was love at first sight,” said Magela Guerrero, Pancho’s 32-year-old adopted “mom,” of whom he is fiercely protective.
The bird came into her family’s life in 2011 when a neighbor fishing along Havana’s Malecon seawall found Pancho near death, practically featherless and without any appetite. Knowing that Guerrero takes in animals, the neighbor brought the pelican to her door.
The bird is a three-year-old Pelecanus occidentalis occidentalis, or Caribbean brown pelican, whose habitat ranges from the southern US to the Brazilian Amazon.
A veterinarian prescribed a regimen of medicine and curative creams, and Guerrero nursed him through what seemed an unlikely recovery.
Pancho’s plumage has long since recovered its silky brown luster and he is strong enough to flap his wings vigorously, but against expectations he never rejoined his brothers and sisters at sea.
“It’s been like this for a year and a half,” said Guerrero, a homemaker and mother of a 13-year-old son.
She repeatedly tried to reintroduce Pancho into the wild at the Malecon, but he ignored other pelicans flying past. He might enjoy a dip in the sea and take flight briefly, but would always alight at her side. When she left, he simply followed her on foot back to 23rd Street.
Guerrero said Pancho frequently accompanies her on walks and responds when she calls his name, even obeying commands to jump up on park benches. He also has a possessive streak, rubbing her ears with his long beak — and jabbing the beak at others who approach her.
“Just imagine, sometimes he doesn’t even let me get near her,” said Freddy de Leon, Guerrero’s 48-year-old husband.
Pancho behaves as if he is just another member of the household, climbing up on the wooden rocking chairs. He sleeps in a bucket and gets daily hose-baths in the patio. Sometimes he flaps up to the roof to bask in the sun.
Perhaps his easy demeanor should not be surprising. Guerrero and De Leon’s home is a veritable menagerie of animals that they say coexist peacefully, despite including both predators and potential prey: three dogs and a cat, a hawk, another bird of prey called a kestrel, a parrot, three turtles and a goose.
“It’s like a zoo here,” Guerrero said. “Kids always stop to look.”
The family has contacted a local aquarium about finding a mate for Pancho, but there is no romance on the horizon yet.
Guerrero said the bird gulps down about 1kg of fish a day. His species needs a steady saline intake, so she feeds it to him in buckets of saltwater that a neighbor hauls in plastic bottles from the sea 10 blocks away.
“His favorite is sardines, but I’ve bought him everything,” Guerrero said. “At the fish market, we are well-known, regular clients.”
It is no wonder Pancho does not leave, with all those sardines served up by a doting adopted mama.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese