USFS Pelican

US FWS Pelican sometime in 1948 or 1950

In 1939, the BOF was transferred from the United States Department of Commerce to the United States Department of the Interior,[3] and on 30 June 1940, it merged with the Interior Department's Division of Biological Survey to form the new Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS),[4] The vessel thus became part of the FWS fleet[2] as US FWS Pelican.

In early 1941, Pelican was loaded aboard the United States Navy cargo ship USS Vega at Newport News.[2] Vega transported her to Puget Sound in Washington, delivering her there at the end of April 1941.[2] After undergoing an overhaul, she proceeded to the Territory of Alaska for service as an FWS fishery patrol vessel.[2] In addition to patrol duties, she often serviced FWS trap and stream watchmen – temporary FWS employees in Southcentral and Southeast Alaska who patrolled important fishing grounds and maintained lights and free-floating fish traps[5] – with supplies.[2] In late 1941, she towed the FWS fishery patrol vessel USFS Eider, which had suffered damage when she ran aground on 24 October 1941 – from Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada, to Seattle, Washington, for repairs.[2]

During World War II, the United States Army took control of Pelican, basing her at Seward, Territory of Alaska, in 1943–1944 and using her to transport personnel and supplies to lookout stations on Montague Island in the Gulf of Alaska.[2] During this period, her material condition declined and she often required repairs and maintenance.[2]

Pelican returned to FWS control after World War II.[2] While she was in Seattle for an overhaul sometime around 1947 or 1948, her original engine was replaced by a 200-horsepower (149 kW) six-cylinder direct-reversing Joshua Hendy Iron Works diesel engine.[2] Started by an air compressor,[2] her new engine consumed about 1 US gallon (3.8 l; 0.83 imp gal) of diesel fuel per nautical mile (1.15 miles, 1.85 km) and gave her a cruising speed of 8.5 knots (15.7 km/h; 9.8 mph) and a maximum speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).[2]

Under a major reorganization in 1956, the FWS became the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and a new Bureau of Commercial Fisheries (BCF) was created as a component of the USFWS.[6] Seagoing USFWS vessels, including Pelican, came under the control of the USFWS's new BCF. By 1957, the USFWS had based her at Juneau, Territory of Alaska, where she supported management operations.[2]

In 1958, the FWS loaned Pelican to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. The State of Washington used her for fishery patrols off the Washington coast until 1970.[2] She was Washington's largest patrol vessel and the state's first to be equipped with radar.[2] During her years with the Washington fishery patrol fleet, her Joshua Hendy engine was replaced with another Joshua Hendy engine of the same model.[2]

On 3 October 1970, a major reorganization occurred which formed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under the United States Department of Commerce. As part of the reorganization, the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries was removed from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, reorganized, and placed under NOAA as the new National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and Pelican thus came under NMFS control when Washington returned her to the United States Government in 1970 or 1971.[2][7] At first, the major ships that were to form the new NOAA fleet – seagoing ships of the BCF fleet and those which formerly made up the fleet of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, which had been disestablished upon the creation of NOAA – reported to separate entities, with former Coast and Geodetic Survey ships subordinate to the National Ocean Survey (the Coast and Geodetic Survey's successor organization within NOAA), while former BCF ships like Pelican reported to the BCF's successor within NOAA, the NMFS. Although the ships were resubordinated during 1972 and 1973 to form the unified NOAA fleet,[8] this change still lay in the future when NOAA sold Pelican into private ownership in 1972, bringing her U.S. Government career to an end.[2]

In 1972, Mr. and Mrs. Walt Masland purchased Pelican from NOAA for about US$16,000 in a sealed-bid auction at Seattle.[2] Pelican had only 800 operating hours on her engine at the time of her sale.[2] Over at least the next 38 years, the Maslands spent thousands of man-hours on restoring Pelican to nearly her original condition and to maintain her in that condition.[2] As of 2010, Pelican's home port was Port Angeles, Washington, the Maslands still owned her, and her Joshua Hendy engine still provided her propulsion. As of 2018, Pelicans home port is Deer Harbor, Orcas Island, WA, purchased from the Maslands by Captain Patrick Burns and Captain John Sylvester.[2]