An Injured Pelican Showed Up at a NOAA Laboratory and Basically Knocked on the Door for Help

Scientists at a NOAA laboratory in Florida were busy studying sharks and fish populations when they heard something tapping against the building’s glass door.

Waiting outside was a brown pelican.

And it had a problem.

The bird was standing on the steps of NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center Panama City Laboratory, repeatedly tapping its beak against the entrance. When one of the biologists opened the door, the reason for the unusual visit quickly became clear.

Heavy-duty fishing line was wrapped around the pelican’s body. A double-barbed treble hook was deeply embedded in its right wing, and the bird also had cactus spines stuck in its left foot.

Somehow, the injured pelican had ended up at the doorstep of a building filled with people who knew exactly how to handle wildlife.

The scientists weren’t exactly expecting a walk-in patient.

Researchers at the Panama City Laboratory study fish populations and regularly work with animals including sharks and sawfish. Handling a pelican wasn’t part of the day’s schedule, but the skills used during their marine research suddenly became extremely useful.

The team carefully restrained the bird and got to work.

Researchers cut the barb from the hook and removed it from the pelican’s wing. Then they began unwinding several feet of monofilament fishing line that had become wrapped around the animal.

The entire operation took about 10 minutes.

According to NOAA, the pelican remained surprisingly calm while the team worked.

Once the hook and fishing line were gone and the bird had been checked over, there wasn’t much left to do.

The pelican flew away.

A Lucky Ending to a Common Problem

The story is almost comically perfect.

An injured seabird needed help and somehow ended up knocking on the door of a federal marine science laboratory.

But the reason the pelican needed help in the first place isn’t particularly unusual.

Discarded and lost fishing line can pose a serious threat to coastal wildlife. Monofilament is strong, thin and difficult for animals to see. Birds, sea turtles and other wildlife can become tangled in it, sometimes suffering severe injuries as the line tightens around wings, legs or other parts of the body.

Hooks attached to discarded line create another danger.

For pelicans and other seabirds that spend much of their lives around the water looking for fish, encounters with fishing equipment can happen quickly. A bird may become hooked while attempting to grab bait or become tangled in line that has been left behind.

In this case, the pelican got extremely lucky.

It wasn’t stranded somewhere miles from help. It wasn’t discovered after the fishing line had caused irreversible damage.

Instead, it walked right up to the people who could do something about it.

NOAA used the unusual encounter to remind anglers that used fishing line should always be secured and properly discarded. Many boat ramps and fishing areas have designated recycling containers specifically for monofilament line.

NOAA also recommends that people who accidentally hook a bird avoid simply cutting the line and allowing the animal to fly away with the hook still attached. Wildlife agencies can provide instructions or connect people with trained responders who can safely help.

This particular pelican apparently decided to skip that process altogether.

Whether the bird understood that the people inside the building could help it is impossible to know. The laboratory may simply have been the place where an injured and exhausted animal happened to stop.

Either way, the timing couldn’t have been much better.

The scientists who walked into work expecting another normal day studying marine life suddenly had a very different assignment waiting outside.

And this patient didn’t need an appointment.

It just knocked.

Sources: NOAA’s Fisheries