VIDEO: Rehabbed white pelican released into wild

SANIBEL, Fla. — It began as a “heartbreak story,” but the ending was happy Wednesday for a while pelican released into the wild after battling the effects of red tide.

“When he came in he was so down that he couldn’t stand,” said Breanna Frankel, a wildlife rehabilitation specialist at the Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife on Sanibel. “He couldn’t hold his head up. He had lesions on his feet. he had ulcers in his eyes. So he was just a heartbreak story.”

It all turned around in a matter of weeks for the bird, which was returned to the J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge where it was found.