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Pelican Possibility

There are some species that slip quietly back into a landscape. The Dalmatian pelican is not one of them. With a wingspan approaching three metres, a taste for communal fishing and a habit of crossing entire regions in a single day, it is a bird that asks awkward, unavoidable questions of the places it inhabits. Are your wetlands connected? Is there enough life in the water? And are you restoring landscapes or merely managing fragments? As part of an ongoing feasibility study, RESTORE invited two of Europe’s leading pelican specialists — Sebastian Bugariu of the Romanian Ornithological Society (SOR) and Giorgos Catsadorakis, Chair of the Pelican Specialist Group, IUCN-SSC — to help assess the condition of Britain’s wetlands, from broads and estuaries to floodplains shaped by water, fish and time. This work is about dialogue, listening to the people who know these landscapes best and manage them day in, day out. That includes colleagues at Natural England, The Wildlife Trusts, the RSPB, and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), alongside land managers, ecologists and local partners. Understanding how these wetlands function today and how they’ve changed over recent decades is essential before any further steps can even be considered. What is emerging is not a simple yes or no, but something far more interesting. Britain may not offer a single wetland on the scale of the Danube Delta, but it is increasingly defined by networks of recovering wetlands — living systems that, if restored and connected with sufficient ambition, could function as something greater than the sum of their parts. The question, then, is not whether a pelican could be placed into a landscape, but whether we are prepared to create landscapes capable of supporting it — through long-term restoration, patient collaboration and open public conversation. On World Wetlands Day, that question feels especially urgent. Wetlands are not just habitats to be protected in isolation, but living systems that underpin water quality, biodiversity, climate resilience and human wellbeing. Restoring them at scale demands ambition, coordination and a willingness to think beyond boundaries. Because if a bird like the Dalmatian pelican were ever to return, it would not be the result of a single decision or project. It would be the outcome of a country choosing to think bigger about nature and proving that choice through sustained action. #nature #environment #dalmatianpelican #birds #naturerestoration #rewilding #rebirding #worldwetlandsday