Brown Pelicans in St. Petersburg — St. Petersburg, Florida

The brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) is St. Petersburg's official city bird, a status formalized on January 9, 2020, under Mayor Rick Kriseman, as reported by the Tampa Bay Times. The species had already functioned as an informal civic symbol for decades before that designation. St. Petersburg occupies the southern tip of the Pinellas Peninsula, bounded by Tampa Bay to the east and Boca Ciega Bay and the Gulf of Mexico to the west — a geography that situates the city within one of Florida's most productive coastal waterbird habitats.

The broader Tampa Bay region, as described in a 2025 study published in Avian Conservation and Ecology, contains more than ten brown pelican nesting colonies spread across Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee, and Sarasota counties. Among those colonies, Tarpon Key — an island within the Tampa Bay National Wildlife Refuges complex — is documented by the Friends of the Tampa Bay National Wildlife Refuges as having hosted the largest brown pelican rookery in the state of Florida. The species' presence along the city's piers, waterfront parks, and nearshore waters is a consistent feature of daily life in St. Petersburg.

On January 9, 2020, the City of St. Petersburg formally designated the brown pelican as its official city bird. The action was taken under Mayor Rick Kriseman's administration, as documented by both WTSP and the Tampa Bay Times. The Tampa Bay Times noted that the pelican had already served as an unofficial symbol of the city for an extended period before the formal action, reflecting a long-standing cultural association between the species and St. Petersburg's coastal identity.

The designation placed the brown pelican alongside the city's other civic symbols and aligned with St. Petersburg's self-identification as a waterfront community. The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation recognizes St. Petersburg as a Preserve America Community, a designation that reflects the city's documented commitment to its historical and natural heritage. The brown pelican's formal status as official city bird gives the species a recognized place within that civic framework, connecting the waterfront ecology of Tampa Bay to municipal identity.

The brown pelican is classified by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) as a large seabird that spends most of its time on or near the ocean, making it well-suited to the nearshore environments surrounding St. Petersburg. The species is widespread along Florida's Gulf Coast, where the shallow waters, seagrass beds, and mangrove systems of Tampa Bay provide foraging and roosting habitat year-round.

Brown pelicans are distinctive in flight and feeding behavior: they are among the few pelican species that dive from altitude to capture fish rather than surface-feeding. The FWC species profile documents both the physical characteristics of the bird and the ecological conditions it depends on, including access to productive fish populations in nearshore waters. The species occupies piers, jetties, seawalls, and open water throughout the St. Petersburg waterfront and is a regular presence at public access points along both the Tampa Bay and Gulf sides of the Pinellas Peninsula.

According to the 2025 Avian Conservation and Ecology study, the region's human population swells with seasonal visitors from January through May, peaking in April — a period that overlaps with active nesting activity in the Tampa Bay brown pelican colonies. This seasonal convergence places the species in frequent proximity to recreational fishing activity at piers and boat ramps throughout Pinellas County.

The most significant brown pelican nesting habitat near St. Petersburg is protected within the Tampa Bay National Wildlife Refuges complex, administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The complex includes the Pinellas National Wildlife Refuge, whose islands lie in close proximity to the city. According to the Friends of the Tampa Bay National Wildlife Refuges, Tarpon Key — one of the refuge's protected islands — has hosted the largest brown pelican rookery in the state of Florida. The refuge islands are closed to public entry specifically to protect nesting colonies and other sensitive wildlife habitat, including the seagrass beds that support the fish populations on which pelicans depend.

Egmont Key, another island within the Tampa Bay National Wildlife Refuges system, is documented by a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fact sheet as supporting brown pelican populations that have exceeded 1,000 nesting pairs in a single summer season. The same source documents winter use of Egmont Key by pelicans, indicating the island serves the species across multiple seasons. These refuge islands collectively represent the primary nesting infrastructure for brown pelicans in the Tampa Bay region and are directly connected to the coastal geography that defines St. Petersburg's position on the peninsula.

The 2025 peer-reviewed study published in Avian Conservation and Ecology documents more than ten brown pelican nesting colonies distributed across the four-county Tampa Bay region, spanning Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee, and Sarasota counties. The study reports a five-year maximum nest average of 721 nests for the period 2019 through 2023, providing a quantitative baseline for the regional population during that interval.

Within this regional network, Pinellas County — where St. Petersburg is located — contains several of the documented colony sites. The nearshore islands of Tampa Bay, including those within the Pinellas National Wildlife Refuge, account for a substantial share of nesting activity. The proximity of these colonies to the urbanized areas of St. Petersburg and Clearwater means that brown pelicans foraging from active nests are regularly observed in the open waters of Tampa Bay, at waterfront parks, and along the publicly accessible Gulf beaches of the barrier islands west of the city. The Avian Conservation and Ecology study situates Tampa Bay within a broader pattern of urbanized coastal habitat where pelican-human interactions — particularly at fishing piers — are frequent enough to generate measurable wildlife rehabilitation caseloads.

The brown pelican was listed as an endangered species in the 1980s, a fact documented by both the Tampa Bay Times and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The species subsequently recovered to the point where it was removed from the federal endangered species list, a recovery attributed in significant part to the phase-out of DDT and the protection of nesting islands. The FWC notes, however, that threats to the species in the Tampa Bay area persist despite this population recovery.

Documented threats include entanglement in monofilament fishing line, fishhook ingestion, and habitat disturbance at nesting colonies. The 2025 Avian Conservation and Ecology study examined rehabilitation admission data linked to interactions at fishing piers, finding that pier-associated injuries represent a recurring source of pelican casualties in the Tampa Bay region. The Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary, located near St. Petersburg in the Clearwater area, is documented as a wildlife rehabilitation facility that treats pelicans and other seabirds injured in these and other circumstances.

The broader coastal environment around St. Petersburg also faces ongoing pressures from storm events. Hurricanes Helene and Milton struck the region in October 2024; City of St. Petersburg communications document that Milton made landfall as a Category 3 storm. Major storm events have historically disrupted nesting colonies and altered the seagrass and mangrove habitats that brown pelicans depend upon for foraging, adding episodic disturbance to the list of pressures the species faces in and around Pinellas County.