YOWIE

I received a desperate call from residents, David and Tracey, of Yowie Bay, Sydney, about a pelican in all sorts of trouble.  It turned into a real ‘baptism of fire’ experience for new Team Member, Dallas.  Due to the late hour, plus 1 hour travelling time, I decided Dallas and I would head up early next day, rain and all.

The poor female pelican had line coming from her beak, around her head and chest and tight around her leg.  Being in such a bad way we couldn’t get her in the usual manner, so I asked David if we could get her in his boat.  Yeah… good idea, but being low tide he and Dallas had to drag it over the sand flat quite a distance with a big motor on the boat. 

So off we went and off she went flying with difficulty amongst the moored boats.  Finally she landed on a pole of a private jetty – I could see the 1.5 metre of the trailing line hanging down the pole so I jumped onto the bow of the board, wrapped the line around my hand and pulled.  She won!  She came down landing in the water… but the line cut my hand so I quickly got Dallas to get the net over her head and I hauled her in to the boat. 

Back on dry land, where we could look at her properly, the line was carefully removed from her leg and I managed to successfully remove the hook, which she had swallowed, with a not so delicate ‘hand down the throat’ approach.  Happily, we were able to release her and she went off fishing.

I called David and Tracey the next day to check on her progress and they reported that she was doing fine… a big thank you to them as she would have perished either from starvation or the line cutting through her leg.  Thanks also to Dallas – job well done!

Betty

Yowie the pelican