when i go to work in the mornings they re right there on my roof when i open the door. scares me. reporter: they called the georgia department of natural resources but have found little help. birds are federally protected. digging deeper, we learned it s because the species was on the decline due to eggshell thinning due to pesticides and loss of nesting habitat. neighbors aren t so sure. for as many as i have seen out here. i don t know if they re endangered or not. reporter: many gather in the skies, ryan williams is afraid to let his 6 week old puppy out alone. scared they ll scoop him up. that s all there its. i can t control the situation. if too many birds come up pecking at him and stuff. reporter: neighbors have tried shotgun blasts in an effort to scare the bird. the birds do migrate leaving neighbors to hope they ll move on sooner rather than later. all right. thank you, jennifer for the report here. don t mess with these things. they re protected. officers wi
but this region s devastating spill may have killed thousands of birds. many were found fighting for survival. we brought you some of their stories. this brown pelican was justice rescued moments ago. this is the first step in a long road for this animal s recovery. reporter: officials say about 80% of the oil-covered birds were treated and eventually returned back to the wild. why is this refuge so important to our country? these islands represent some of the most important nesting habitat for colonial sea birds. not just in louisiana but in the united states. reporter: more than 60,000 birds are expected to nest in the bretten refuge, laying eggs and raising their young. you can see in front of us we ve got three pelican nests, each one filled with a clutch of precious pelican eggs. and this is about the future for this species. it is. this is the next generation. these are the ones that will
affected the environment so it may be generations before this is a viable farm again. let s take a look at another picture. let s move forward. this shows us some of the seascaping, the effect on the coastline, jeff. as we experienced before, there was a huge effect on the ecosystems off the coast there and all the islands in the arc pell ago. how long will this take? as we scroll, it got moved in. what will happen to all of this? it s such a shocking reminder of how truly vulnerable we are. less s stroll it back and look at the pristine coastline. we see, your standard stretch of beach. in comes this incredible tidal wave. we ve lost about 40% of the beach within seconds. of course, what is this? this is all habitat. this is all nesting habitat for birds. these are all the shell fish part of the commercial shellfish industry. so not only do we see habitat being devastated, in the time of