Two injured Pelicans at Living Sky are only allowed to eat store bought fish (Living Sky Wildlife Rehabilitation/Submitted)

By CKOM

Pelican care

Living Sky Wildlife Rehab seeks fish donations for injured pelicans

Sep 21, 2025 | 6:22 PM

Living Sky Wildlife Rehabilitation is currently taking care of two pelicans with leg injuries.

While dealing with the challenges of rehabbing and caring for the injured birds, a new challenge has emerged.

The big birds, with even bigger appetites, are only allowed to eat store-bought fish.

“We are not allowed to accept wild-caught fish,” said Jan Shadick, Executive Director of Living Sky Wildlife Rehabilitation.

Despite pelicans eating wild fish in their day-to-day life, Shadick said the government told Living Sky it can only feed the birds store-bought fish.

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“They like their filets, but whole fish are good because we actually need to get the bones and that calcium into them,” she said.

Jan is also a founding member of the provincial organization, Wildlife Rescue Society of Saskatchewan. (Living Sky Wildlife Rehabilitation website)

Shadick said caring for the pelicans can be quite expensive.

“Pelican medication is actually several hundred dollars on top of the fish,” she said. “So donations are gratefully accepted.”

Shadick said when the second pelican arrived, the team learned about both leg injuries.

“The first one we thought was maybe just a young one that was starving and not eating very well,” she said. “The second one came in, it had a leg injury and as it turned out, the first one also had a leg injury.”

Both birds are doing well. The first bird has been on antibiotics for a couple of weeks, and Shadick said she’s happy there are two of them.

“I’m really glad we have two of them because they keep each other company,” she said. “They’re very much a flocking species, and they like to have friends around, so the two of them hang out together inside the pen.”

Shadick and the staff at Living Sky have really enjoyed having the birds around.

“They open that big beak at you and it’s actually quite funny to watch,” she said. “They aren’t super anxious and nervous birds, thankfully, so they’re doing really well in captivity.”

This isn’t the first time Living Sky has treated a pelican, but Shadick said she noticed the number of pelicans in their care each year has begun to grow.

“We used to get one every five years and it was a big adventure,” she said. “I think it was in the fall we had some ridiculous number, I think we got 11 pelicans.”

The hope is that the pelicans can be released into the wild within a couple of weeks.

Living Sky Wildlife Rehabilitation is a non-profit, registered charity, based in Saskatoon. It handles around 2,300 injured animals every year.

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