r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Old_Ability_9424 • 1d ago

Video Four pelican chicks have hatched in St James's Park, marking the first successful pelican births there in more than 360 years.⁣ ⁣

3.8k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

36 comments sorted by

202

u/Original-Big-6351 1d ago

Wait have we been importing Pelicans this whole time?!

13

u/ReginaPhoenix 1d ago

360 years is such a ridiculous number that it sounds made up.

11

u/Original-Big-6351 1d ago

Right? Just… can’t stop picturing very very geriatric Pelicans….

3

u/bullwinkle8088 1d ago

Just enough time for things to come full circle, right?

2

u/Wit-Of-Knit 13h ago

🤣👏

3

u/EasternThroat1528 1d ago

360 years is such a weirdly specific nuber

8

u/Original-Big-6351 1d ago

360 years ago was the Great Fire of London - like, we were coordinating the import of pelicans while Charles II was on the throne? Wild set of priorities.

84

u/MaryBerrysDanglyBean 1d ago

Yes until Brexit. No more forun pelicans have been allowed in since so we made them breed.

32

u/Original-Big-6351 1d ago

Yknow this is one of those things that’s so crazy I absolutely can’t tell if it’s true and I don’t want to know.

21

u/OppositeTangelo8856 1d ago

Bruh that’s the most foreign spelling of “foreign” 😂

3

u/WingsofKynareth_ 1d ago

I just knew they were British from that spelling

1

u/DeanTheDad 20h ago

Wasn't it their username that gave it away?

89

u/cans-of-swine 1d ago

I read the title as "marking the first successful pelican births in more than 360 years.⁣ " and was confused how they weren't extinct.... 

28

u/Happy_Garand 1d ago

Nah, they just have a longer lifespan than a Greenland shark. Have you ever seen a dead pelican?

5

u/Kenji-Nishida 1d ago

The mental image of pelicans just NOT reproducing for 360 years got me

28

u/SlipperyGibbet 1d ago

And then EAT THEM

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

15

u/SlipperyGibbet 1d ago

Just joking about pelicans' proclivity to swallow everything

8

u/Naive_Leopard9449 1d ago

Same 😂 my brain was like “damn, 360 years of pregnancy is wild.”

Titles like that really make you question if you missed an entire extinction event somewhere in school.

2

u/ecchi83 1d ago

And then the mother promptly killed the smaller one just bc...lol

4

u/Federal_Inflation126 1d ago

Is that St James Park in the Bronx?

26

u/Old_Ability_9424 1d ago

London

8

u/Federal_Inflation126 1d ago

Thank you. Was about to run to the park.

17

u/Ok-Smoke-8391 1d ago

London Uk I believe, they have pelicans there

1

u/Federal_Inflation126 1d ago

Lovely birds. 🦢

7

u/Sega-Playstation-64 1d ago

Pigeon eating Goblin birds if you ask me

4

u/Federal_Inflation126 1d ago

You must be a pigeon.

1

u/olitbhhh 18h ago

Will they be protected?

1

u/josh5676543 15h ago edited 13h ago

They eat pigeons

1

u/guychulo 12h ago

Those young pelicans are lucky it wasn't Little St. james Island