How did this happen?

A late call came in about a pelican in trouble. I jumped on the phone to new Australian Seabird Rescue team member Hanna (being the closest) who didn’t hesitate to come and help.

A very big very handsome pelican somehow found this 7cm shark hook with a 28cm skin of a fish attached embedded in his side.

Mysteriously no line attached to the hook!

Large hook with skin attached embedded in the side of a pelican.

Has some fisherman been cleaning fish and thrown this hook with no care or more likely Mr Pelican has taken someone’s fish out of the sea and they have cut the line?

Either way – why!

The weight and size of the hook had torn the birds side as well as the length of the fish skin causing him to tread on it aggravating the situation.

Unfortunately they had been fed and weren’t interested in what we had to offer. So next morning team member Julie and I returned and caught him quickly.

This injury could have been so easily avoided. Please enjoy your fishing but be careful and do not feed the birds. Let them go back to the wild and hopefully stay out of trouble.

Thanks again to Julie and Hanna.

Betty