My son sent me an article this morning from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), London, Ontario. It is about the Osprey caught in fishing line that died. You need to read this. It isn’t long.
Most everyone that loves birds have, at one time or another, seen Ospreys, herons, and other water birds, even ducks and geese, get caught up in the trash that humans leave behind. In this instance, it is tonnes and tonnes of fishing line that is left behind. Line gets tangled on dead tree trunks and branches along the shore, fish break line and have hooks in their bodies which impact the Eagles and Ospreys. The birds take those fish up to their nests not knowing there is a hook in them (or they eat them). Anyone reading this blog has also held their breath or called the owner of the nest or the nearest wildlife rehab when they see a nest with line and hooks in it. You might remember CROW going up to the Captiva Bald Eagle nest to remove the fishing line from little Peace. There were more last year on other nests, some with hooks. It is terrifying.
My son is a conservationist. He travels the world to fish and he does not leave anything behind. Indeed, he helps lead an effort on the island where he lives to clean up the shore every year. As the CBC article points out there are two types of people who fish, the conservationists who are stewards of the wildlife and the water and the sometimes goes fishing on a Saturday fisher for something to do. The latter are more likely the ones to leave equipment behind, bait wrappers, line, hooks.
Want to help? Talk to anyone you know who goes fishing about the problems. Don’t attack them! You won’t get anywhere. Work your magic and tell them why it is important. Find examples and show them. I have posted some videos below the image of Mrs G. Educate young people who might be going fishing. Organize monthly shore clean ups! Get your local parks and recreation office to make permanent signs like the one above and post them where there are lots of leisure fishers. It won’t help with everyone but it will help. The fish will thank you but so will our beautiful Ospreys.
To go along with the article, here are three videos I found without any effort on YouTube. Two show the rescue of herons and one – the middle one – the rescue of an osprey caught in monofilament line.
I love the sign. It is my featured image and the credit goes to: “Fishing Line Can Kill Sign” by Mr.TinDC is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0
Thanks for joining me today!
Happy 4th to you and your family.
Great saves and I hope more signage like this can go up everywhere…this affects all wildlife, including those of the sea.
I am so worried about Tumbles and Jack with the storm coming. I am praying the mountains if Cuba with slow it down and weaken it over the weekend 🙏🙏
Yesterday Electra was at the nest almost the entire day. Thus morning she was on/off the nest…hopefully went fishing.
Osoyoos cam is still down.
Do you know if Tumbles and Jack will survive? I’ve seen winds swirl at the nest at 15mph with rain and it swayed a lot. Tumbles still stood on the nest.
Hi Salliane, I decided to do some more research. So I am finding quite a few articles. Here is one that will perhaps give you comfort.
https://www.capeandislands.org/in-this-place/2014-07-09/no-big-deal-for-humans-hurricane-arthur-a-disaster-for-ospreys-and-beach-nesting-birds
The adult birds were fine. I am so glad that there are not any little babies on any of the nests in that area. It confirms to me what I have been told – the larger birds should be fine. And Tiny is larger. We will see how strong that nest is. She will hunker down somewhere safe. We will all watch and pray.
Hi Sallianne. T has been a terrible week. I watched Electra too and then Watts came for a few minutes. I am pretty sure she is fishing and hopefully catching enough.
I am keeping a really close watch on Elsa, too. And have begun to worry a bit since it has strengthened, heading near Cuba. Do you watch any of the nests in Wales? The Glaslyn Nest was hit with force 11 winds, 78 miles per hour, at the beginning of June in the huge storm. Mrs. G held tight to the nest, and babies were hatching. She was fine. Other circumstances caused the babies not to live. That same nest was hit in 2018 by Storm Hector with 70 mph winds. Monty went fishing during Hector! I am serious. People still talk about it. So those winds are still stronger than what is being predicted for the Florida coast. I worry about Tiny, too. My son lives in the Caribbean, and their last hurricane was a horrible one, Ivan. You can read about it. To my knowledge, they lost tonnes of their historic nutmeg trees, and the winds pulled out the palm trees along the beach everywhere, 39 people died, and the roofs came off almost every house but, I don’t believe any Caribbean Ospreys were injured. I will check that with him, Salliane, and let you know. I don’t want to give you the wrong information, but I believe I am correct. But take comfort in that nothing happened to the Glaslyn nest. Mrs. G rode that storm out with babies hatching under her!
2:06 PM 7/3/21
Hi, Mary Ann —
Have you been checking the Clark County WA PUD Osprey Watch along with the others? It seems to have been offline since June 28, no reason given.
Best wishes — Nick
Hi Nick. Thank you for writing. I wish I had better news for you. Sadly the two chicks died in the heat wave that hit the region. Unlike Cowlitz PUD, Clark PUD decided that it was too upsetting so they have turned the streaming cam off. This heat continues to take its toll on the wildlife.