What happened in Santa Cruz - Pelican rescue
In Santa Cruz, past home and place of many longings and memories and wonderful places to hike (with lots of poison oak), bike (with lots of poison oak), play golf, and get in the water (well, not really cause I know there are sharks out there, and big waves trying to kill me, but Gina gets in :)
G and I came down here on Monday to start our vacation - wow is it hard for my brain to get into vacation mode - I've been pushing it so hard it's not surprising that I have been struggling with getting into off mode, but I'm trying.
Pelicans
We went to the beach on Tuesday, and there were unbelievable amounts of pelicans, and a humpback whale!, and small terns that stole things out of pelicans mouths. It was dive bombing central - Pelicans make a great splash on their way into the water, and then are immediately accosted by terns.
After we walked aways and were on our way back, (and we'd been scolded by the park ranger for having our dogs off leash, sigh, not a very dog friendly place, this Santa Cruz, no matter how it styles itself)... I spied a pelican in the water with it's face/beak tucked to it's right wing - and it seemed to be struggling. Dammit. Yup, struggling, it couldn't remove its beak from it's wing - so something was trapping it. I finally saw a glint of silver, and knew it had to be a fishing lure. So, I pointed it out to Gina, and we plotted... I saw the nice park ranger who had chastised us, and went and asked her what to do. She said if it was in the water, they couldn't do anything, but if it came on land, to call 911, and they'd give me the number for Wildlife animal rescue. Gina started disrobing, and at the same time, the Pelican, we'll call her Hermione, washed in closer.
G went into the surf and grabbed her with her jacket, and we got her to shore to assess the damage. Yup, it was a 6 inch or longer, silver lure with tri-hooks on both ends. One end was hooked in the pouch of the pelican, the other in the right wing. I am now swearing... people start to gather, we get a bit of assistance. There are a number of fishermen on the shore and we start asking if they have clippers to cut out the barbs - of course not (I am pissed at this point - must have clippers to cut out barbs, fisher people - be responsible!!!!). Along comes another fisherman, and he doesn't have clippers either, but he has strong hands and perserverence. We still can't get through to the wildlife rescue people, yeah, that's helpful.
At this point, I've given the dogs to a guy standing by, he hands Flyte off to a child, yeah, a 12 year old boy. Luckily 12 year old boys don't seem to make her freak out, he ran up and down the beach with her. Mostly she just barked at us - really shrill - what are you doing mommies, what have you got!? Can I help you?!! I know what to do with Pelicans!
So, with Flyte egging us on, and strong hand Luke (that's what we'll call him), we got the hooks out of Hermione, it wasn't pretty. But we got her free. Then she wanted away. She actually sat near us for a moment, I think she was exhausted. We were deciding if we should recapture her and try and figure out the wildlife rescue thing when she flapped her wings for a moment, tried to fly (didn't get much height) and went back out into the water. She just hung out there. We were a bit distressed - we figured she was exhausted as we didn't know how long she'd been in that state, and probably hungry. She was floating when we left, just hanging out.
How do you know if you are doing the right thing? We are sure that she did not want to die with her beak stuck to her wing. So, we fixed that problem. But, there is no guarantee that she would live beyond that. Talk about feeling torn. Still feel torn.
We left info on the Wildlife Hotline's message machine - hopefully if she washed back onto shore they would find her. Hopefully she survived. Hopefully the fisher that lost/threw away/discarded their lure felt a sharp pain in their shoulder and mouth that perplexed them for days, and they were visited by an image of a pelican that they couldn't shake. And they stopped letting any lures go, and they knew that we ALL are connected. That's my fantasy. And that Hermione lived, and thrived and will start a guerilla war against lazy fishers.... I look forward to reading about that in the papers.
G and I came down here on Monday to start our vacation - wow is it hard for my brain to get into vacation mode - I've been pushing it so hard it's not surprising that I have been struggling with getting into off mode, but I'm trying.
Pelicans
We went to the beach on Tuesday, and there were unbelievable amounts of pelicans, and a humpback whale!, and small terns that stole things out of pelicans mouths. It was dive bombing central - Pelicans make a great splash on their way into the water, and then are immediately accosted by terns.
After we walked aways and were on our way back, (and we'd been scolded by the park ranger for having our dogs off leash, sigh, not a very dog friendly place, this Santa Cruz, no matter how it styles itself)... I spied a pelican in the water with it's face/beak tucked to it's right wing - and it seemed to be struggling. Dammit. Yup, struggling, it couldn't remove its beak from it's wing - so something was trapping it. I finally saw a glint of silver, and knew it had to be a fishing lure. So, I pointed it out to Gina, and we plotted... I saw the nice park ranger who had chastised us, and went and asked her what to do. She said if it was in the water, they couldn't do anything, but if it came on land, to call 911, and they'd give me the number for Wildlife animal rescue. Gina started disrobing, and at the same time, the Pelican, we'll call her Hermione, washed in closer.
G went into the surf and grabbed her with her jacket, and we got her to shore to assess the damage. Yup, it was a 6 inch or longer, silver lure with tri-hooks on both ends. One end was hooked in the pouch of the pelican, the other in the right wing. I am now swearing... people start to gather, we get a bit of assistance. There are a number of fishermen on the shore and we start asking if they have clippers to cut out the barbs - of course not (I am pissed at this point - must have clippers to cut out barbs, fisher people - be responsible!!!!). Along comes another fisherman, and he doesn't have clippers either, but he has strong hands and perserverence. We still can't get through to the wildlife rescue people, yeah, that's helpful.
At this point, I've given the dogs to a guy standing by, he hands Flyte off to a child, yeah, a 12 year old boy. Luckily 12 year old boys don't seem to make her freak out, he ran up and down the beach with her. Mostly she just barked at us - really shrill - what are you doing mommies, what have you got!? Can I help you?!! I know what to do with Pelicans!
So, with Flyte egging us on, and strong hand Luke (that's what we'll call him), we got the hooks out of Hermione, it wasn't pretty. But we got her free. Then she wanted away. She actually sat near us for a moment, I think she was exhausted. We were deciding if we should recapture her and try and figure out the wildlife rescue thing when she flapped her wings for a moment, tried to fly (didn't get much height) and went back out into the water. She just hung out there. We were a bit distressed - we figured she was exhausted as we didn't know how long she'd been in that state, and probably hungry. She was floating when we left, just hanging out.
How do you know if you are doing the right thing? We are sure that she did not want to die with her beak stuck to her wing. So, we fixed that problem. But, there is no guarantee that she would live beyond that. Talk about feeling torn. Still feel torn.
We left info on the Wildlife Hotline's message machine - hopefully if she washed back onto shore they would find her. Hopefully she survived. Hopefully the fisher that lost/threw away/discarded their lure felt a sharp pain in their shoulder and mouth that perplexed them for days, and they were visited by an image of a pelican that they couldn't shake. And they stopped letting any lures go, and they knew that we ALL are connected. That's my fantasy. And that Hermione lived, and thrived and will start a guerilla war against lazy fishers.... I look forward to reading about that in the papers.