DISCLAIMER - I am not planning on fighting a pelican.

there’s a brown pelican that hangs out on the railing of a very narrow portion of a boardwalk nearby. the only reason it makes me nervous is because it’s huge, but their nails look short, and their beaks are pointed, but curved downwards so they would have to try to bite me with that long thing instead of pecking me.

like, if a bird capable of clawing or eating my eyes out attacked my face, I’d honestly have no qualms about killing it immediately. but if I ever get attacked by a pelican, it looks like I could just kind of hold it off without having to hurt it. am I right in that?

  • YottaDren@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Ok so my experience comes from catching chickens and clawed ducks as a child, so assuming you’re a full grown adult, and this chart, the ratios are the same.

    You gotta catch them from surprise, from the back, but it sounds like you’re already in the fight if shit goes down. The beak is your issue. The wings are just a distraction. Get the pelican bastard from the neck, as high as possible if you can and try to grab the legs. ChatGPT says they don’t really use their legs to fight, but worst case, start swinging it. I bet once you clamp on the beak, it’ll be hard for it to open. Like how alligators can chomp down, but have trouble opening. Once it’s subdued, it might stay freaked out for a while. You just gotta hold it until it accepts defeat.

    Then take it to your mom and she’ll take the head and feathers off for dinner.

    Best of luck brother.

  • theneverfox@pawb.social
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    3 months ago

    I wouldn’t worry to much about pelicans. Fun fact - pelicans try to eat people sometimes. They basically try to eat every animal, because they have no sense of scale for their food they can swallow. And they don’t risk much by trying - most large animals have the same incredulous reaction we do

    They are not very bright birds nor very quick ones. They are also not very agile. And as a bird, they have hollow bones and you could kill them with a solid fist to the chest… I once saw the aftermath of two shin high dogs tearing one apart. On a small balcony. There was blood everywhere… The dogs were covered in it, completely uninjured and very pleased with themselves

    I wouldn’t worry, even if they have the sharp bits that could injure you, they lack the instincts to use them properly

        • marcos@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          There aren’t many videos out there of creatures trying to eat a capybara.

          It takes some ferocious kind of predator to even attempt it.

          • Ellia Plissken@lemm.eeOP
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            3 months ago

            capybara get eaten in the wild all the time. average lifespan of a wild one is 4 years, and the primary cause of death is predation. they can live 10 years in captivity

            their main form of defense is reproducing about as quickly as rabbits. they are sometimes competition for grazing land, but South Americans usually farm them if they’re a pest, rather than exterminating them, as they are very good meat animals. the Catholic Church classifies them as fish, so the more Catholic of community is, the more of them they’re eating (Catholics aren’t allowed to eat meat on friday, and somebody along the way decided fish weren’t meat. it wasn’t unusual to write the Vatican with a description vague enough to get something declared a fish; both the capybara and beaver were classified as fish because the people submitting the request just emphasized the amount of their lives they spend in the water), and there’s a medicinal grease produced from their skin that they use like petroleum jelly.

            • marcos@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              but South Americans usually farm them if they’re a pest, rather than exterminating them, as they are very good meat animals

              As a South American… Eww! Are you getting your facts from ChatGPT?

              Catholics aren’t allowed to eat meat on friday

              Again, as somebody that was grown catholic, where are you getting that from?

              Mostly large snakes and jaguars eat them. Otherwise, nothing is really a danger.