When brought to set, the pelican "Salty" would run along and brush up against the crew one by one, as if saying hello to each.
It was crucial that actor Finn Little become part of the pelican group, and so he first met the birds when they were just six weeks old.
"Each week, Finn would come and do bonding sessions with the pelicans," explained the picture's pelican trainer Paul Mander, and "spend time with them, socialise with them, so that they would associate him as being friendly and part of the group. The birds formed a strong affinity with Finn and vice-versa."
Nothing restrained the pelican birds on set, so at unexpected moments, they would fly away. They would either return fairly quickly unprompted or pelican trainer Paul Mander would use a red bucket as a visual encouragement. "The red bucket was a very strong visual sign that they were going to get more than one fish," explained Mander. "Pelicans are very visual creatures, so, even from a long distance, the bucket was a really strong draw card to bring them back."
Of the traning of the pelicans, the picture's pelican trainer, Paul Mander, explained: "The behaviours are trained with food rewards, so it's positive reinforcement. Every time they do a desired behaviour, we give them a fish. Pelicans have very good memory retention, so what they learn carries over into the next day."
Of the pelicans' actions and behaviour on set, producer Michael Boughen said: "We had to adapt the script to their performances, but their performances were amazing. We were only imagining what we might get on the page, but these are personalities, these are characters and they brought so much more to it. People will I'm sure assume we used CGI pelicans and we did in a very few limited specific moments, but basically everything you see was real and it was spectacular."
David Gulpilil: , who played Fingerbone Bill in the original Storm Boy (1976), as the father of Fingerbone Bill (Trevor Jamieson). Gulpilil's billing in the film's closing credits reads: "Special appearance as Fingerbone Bill's Dad".