Produced for Hakai Magazine.
Off the southeast coast of Louisiana, just over three kilometers north of where Barataria Bay meets the Gulf of Mexico, sits a blip of land called Queen Bess Island. Despite losing nearly 90 percent of its original footprint since the 1950s due to erosion and hurricanes, Queen Bess provides habitat for more than 60 bird species. But it’s Louisiana’s state bird, the brown pelican, that makes Queen Bess special. The island, along with two others, supports 70 percent of the brown pelican population in the state; yet without recent restoration efforts, the nesting habitat would have disappeared completely. Using fines from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which decimated millions of creatures in coastal Louisiana more than 10 years ago, the state has been rebuilding barrier islands, starting with Queen Bess Island. The land loss cannot be stopped, but can it be slowed? And will the pelicans thrive on their restored island, giving hope to the millions of people living on Louisiana’s coastline who are likewise in danger of being displaced?
Producers/Directors/Editors: Ryan Jones and Alyson Larson
Camera operators: Long Duong, Ryan Jones, Alyson Larson
Hakai Magazine producer: Katrina Pyne
Additional footage: Fenstermaker and LDWF
Special thanks: Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and LSU Center for River Studies
