Watch a doctor and a fishing guide rescue three trapped pelicans off the Florida Keys
Three pelicans got lucky off the Florida Keys.
A fishing guide and a doctor happened upon the birds that were all tangled up in a fishing line.
“It was a real mess,” Fort Lauderdale pain physician Dr. Larry Dalton told WSVN.
Captain Ted Wilson, who was steering, spotted the pelicans on Sundaya short distance from the shore off Islamorada.
“Not only were they all tangled in a bunch of fishing line, but the fishing line on top of that was tangled on top of a stone crab trap buoy,” he told the outlet.
On his Instagram, Wilson posted a video of the painstaking rescue.
Wilson held the birds by the bills while Dalton removed the fishing line with a knife.
The men carefully extract the animals from the line one by one. Once free, the pelicans flapped their wings and quickly disappeared into the water.
The fisherman’s post ends with a stark message about how to avoid other wildlife getting hurt.
“We successfully released them, but it is an excellent reminder of what can happen when fishing line/ monofilament [a man made fishing line] isn’t properly discarded/recycled.”
This story was originally published December 29, 2021 at 10:51 AM.
