Pelican pursuit

With chilly weather approaching in the northern hemisphere, keepers at the Liberec Zoo in the northern Czech Republic set out on Tuesday to help their great white pelicans settle in for the winter.

More than a dozen keepers, steering a boat and two kayaks, chased down the 10 zoo pelicans to round them up and move them to a heated indoor enclosure.

Once the giant water birds were safely on land, the keepers carried them to their winter quarters.

To avoid injuring the birds, the keepers handled them with bare hands - a challenging task, as a single great white pelican's wingspan surpasses 3m and it can weigh up to 15kg.

Once winter is over, the zoo birds will be returned to their open-air enclosure. In the wild, they would have had to migrate thousands of kilometres south to warmer climates every autumn.

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