Late last week, Raven Ridge Wildlife Center received a call about a bird who desperately needed their help. A man who’d been fishing in Pennsylvania’s Lake Redman had seen the black-crowned night heron
completely tangled up in a fishing line and hanging above the water.
Raven Ridge Wildlife Center knew they weren’t going to be able to complete the highly technical rescue all by themselves, so they reached out to a local warden for help. The warden enlisted the assistance of the fire department, and together, they worked to free the heron.
Within an hour, the rescue team was able to cut the heron away from the line. The warden then delivered the bird straight to Raven Ridge Wildlife Center, where the staff got to work making the animal as comfortable as possible.
“[W]e let him rest for about an hour because they’re very high-stress birds,” Tracie Young, founder of Raven Ridge Wildlife Center, told The Dodo. “We don’t know how long that bird was hanging there, stressed out. It was exhausted.”
Once the heron had stabilized, Young got to work removing all of the fishing equipment from the bird’s body. The heron ended up having multiple kinds of fishing line wrapped around his body and three different hooks stuck in his skin.
“The fishing line was wrapped around his leg,” Young said. “And that’s always dangerous because the more the animal struggles, the tighter that fishing line gets … and that’s going to cut off circulation.”
Unfortunately, Raven Ridge Wildlife Center sees countless cases of animals tangled up in fishing lines, particularly for fishing birds like this black-crowned night heron. This bird was most likely perched in the tree above the lake, getting ready to catch a fish, when he accidentally got caught up in the lines.
Black-crowned night herons are a threatened species, so it’s especially important to make sure that everyone is doing what they can to protect them. The good news is that simple measures like always removing fishing equipment can make a huge difference.
“[I]f you happen to be visiting those areas and you see fishing line or hooks or anything like that, even though it’s not yours and you’re not a fisherman, pick it up, clean it up and properly dispose of it,” Young said. “It’ll save a life.”
Thanks to everyone’s dedicated rescue work, this particular heron is doing great. Now that he’s settled in, his appetite is up and he’s healing from his ordeal.
“It’s grooming its feathers, which is a really good sign,” Young said. “It looks beautiful.”
Young estimates that the bird will be ready to be released back into his natural habitat in no time. Before long, he will get to enjoy stretching his wings again.
