It wasn’t quite a scene out of the movie Born Free, but it might have been the next best thing.
This past week, the Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network released 10 of the hundreds of underfed and emaciated brown pelicans they’d been caring for the better part of the last month. Five of the birds were hauled in crates to Butterfly Beach in Montecito and another five at Goleta Beach. When the crates opened, some of the birds “flopped out” and walked along the sand for a few minutes before entering and swimming out. Others would fly off almost immediately, said Ariana Katovich, Wildlife Care Network executive director.
“It was never the same twice,” she said. “It was really rewarding to see them go free back to the wild.”