Pelican in search of snack eats cellphone at Idaho zoo

A pelican at the Tautphaus Park Zoo in Idaho Falls, Id., gave zookeepers quite a scare today after it swallowed a cellphone.

Visitors to the zoo reported seeing several pelicans playing with a phone that had fallen into their enclosure, but by the time zookeepers got to the scene the phone had already been swallowed.  Unable to determine which of the pelicans had swallowed the device, zoo officials briefly considered X-raying the entire flock. 

Fortunately, the pelican quickly coughed up the phone.

"Luckily the bird regurgitated it so it wouldn't harm him," zoo superintendent Bill Gersonde told Idaho Falls' KIDK News. "We just need folks to be really cautious when they're in the zoo and remember that they're guests in the animals' homes and they need to keep their personal belongings as close to them as possible."

No one has come forward to claim the phone, which we can't say we find too surprising, given the fact that it's been inside a pelican's digestive tract.

-- Brendan Bigelow

Photo: Phones on display at a Verizon Wireless store -- or, as the Tautphaus Zoo's pelican population might call it, a buffet.  Credit: Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg News

Comments

[Americas Best Zoos author]

I'm sure glad the pelican coughed up the phone! I could just see the animal rights folks using this against the zoos.

Allen Nyhuis, Coauthor: America's Best Zoos