St James’s Park pelicans moved from public view amid bird flu outbreak

The birds will reside at a separate nature reserve, fed away from public view
PICTURE: JEREMY SELWYN

Six pelicans have been relocated from their residence at St James’s Park Lake to a separate “island” enclosure after an outbreak of bird flu in the UK.

It comes after a person in the south-west of England was on Thursday confirmed to have contracted avian flu, the UK Health Security Agency announced.

The Royal Park pelicans were moved to an enclosure within the park in December following guidance from the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), The Royal Parks said in a statement.

“We want to reassure the public that all six pelicans are healthy and we hope that they will be back out and about preening themselves by the lake, soon.

“During the avian influenza outbreak we have been carrying out enhanced monitoring of our waterbodies across all parks to check for signs of illness and to ensure that any carcasses are removed immediately.

“To date, we have not been alerted to any nearby outbreak of the disease, and we’ve not observed avian influenza in the birds that frequent the waterbodies.”

The birds, named Isla, Tiffany, Gargi, Sun, Moon and Star, are now residing at the Duck Island nature reserve away from public view.

Visitors to St James Park have been advised not to feed or touch wildlife and report any sick or dead birds seen in the Royal Parks.

Bird flu is not an airborne virus but is transmitted between birds or, more rarely, from close contact to infected birds, according to Defra.

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