At the end of 2013, a pelican was separated from its flock after a storm. It wound up at a safari camp in Tanzania called Greystoke Mahale. Unable to fly and obviously lost, the staff took him in. “He swam in off the lake after a big storm,” a camp manager explained. “He couldn’t fly and he’d lost his parents.”
Over the coming months, the staff took him in. Bigbird, as he was named, took them in as well. The staff became his flock, and they taught him to fly by running up and down the beach waving their arms.
Of all the staff, Bigbird developed a special bond with Jeffrey, the camp manager, who took it upon himself to teach the pelican to fish. By taking Bigbird out in a kayak each morning, Jeffrey eventually got the point across, and the pelican caught a fish himself.
