Editorial:

This is boot camp for any so-called animal lover.

The staff at the Wetlands & Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach have spent every day since the new year feeding, warming and otherwise rehabilitating more than 100 pelicans who have come in sick and starved. It’s hard, messy and sometimes smelly work, considering the birds’ many medical woes and the piles of raw fish needed to keep them fed.

It’s also valuable work, and a great benefit to the ecosystem — especially considering that brown pelicans were removed from the federal endangered species list just three months ago. But unlike, say, cats or dogs, those scavenging sea birds aren’t known for expressing love and gratitude to humans.

Technicians and volunteers at the center, who caution people to keep their distance from pelicans and not try to feed them on the street, take whatever measures they can to avoid a nasty pecking. When operating on the birds, they try to keep their faces at least four feet away; when serving them food, they approach the cages backward and set the dish down between their legs.

Pelicans, who survive by diving for fish, have long, serrated beaks that are sharp enough to pierce skin. And because, as wildlife technician Kelly Beavers pointed out, pelicans view humans as predators, that puts us in a delicate situation around them.

So Beavers and the rest of the care center staff should be commended, not just for their compassion, but also for their bravery. It’s one thing to cradle a kitten after an operation; it’s another to release a pelican from a crate on the beach while standing behind the crate to stay out of the pelican’s line of sight.

Each of the pelicans the care center releases has a metal band around its foot to help the federal government track it.

If healthy, robust pelicans show up next year sporting those bands, it will mean a job well done by the center’s staff. And we thank them for their troubles, even if the pelicans won’t.