Blue herons are a common sight on Nancy Brown’s regular kayak trips. But while paddling on the Oromocto River in southwestern New Brunswick recently, she saw something that haunted her.
At first, it was an eagle that drew her attention. When she paddled a little closer to get a photo, the bird didn’t fly away.
“Something was keeping him there,” Brown said.
Then she noticed a blue heron emerging from the grassy water’s edge.
She took a few pictures and as she looked closer, Brown noticed multiple fish hooks and an eel stuck in the heron’s tongue.
“I wanted to get help right away. But … the heron flew when he saw my kayak and the eagle had followed him. So I had paddled over to where they landed and saw them starting to kind of fight,” she said.
“There were some noises coming from the heron. It sounded horrible. I don’t think they actually touched each other. I tried to contact people for help, but didn’t get any answers. So I sadly paddled away.”
But Brown said she couldn’t stop thinking about that heron.
Kayaker Nancy Brown was confused about why an eagle wouldn’t back off from a blue heron on the Oromocto River. Then she got closer.
Pam Novak, the wildlife care director at the Atlantic Wildlife Institute in southeastern New Brunswick, about 20 kilometres north of Sackville, said the institute got a call about the bird from Brown that day.
She said it was clear from the photos that it wasn’t an entanglement the heron could get out of on its own. Unfortunately, she said the institute’s distance from the bird, and a lack of field resources, meant there wasn’t much she could do.
“It was really up to anybody in the field that was able to help try to catch this bird and to get that fishing line off of them,” Novak said.
Untangling the heron
The next day, Brown returned to the site. This time, she found the heron weaker and unable to fly. So she posted another call-out on Facebook to see if anyone could help.
Eventually, she got a message from her friend Chris Barrett who brought his friend Mark Robinson to help.
Barrett, via email, said the hooks were in the heron’s tongue and neck, “with an eel hanging from one of the hooks.”
He and Brown stayed a short distance away, “so as not to stress the bird more,” while his friend, who has worked with injured animals, dealt with the hooks, Barrett said.
Brown said Robinson got up close with the heron and used wire cutters to snip the fishing line before removing the hooks from its tongue.
“It was scary for a moment,” said Brown. “When you’re watching something like that, it’s longer usually or seems longer than it usually is.”
After that, she said the heron got up and walked away.
On Monday, Brown said she went out on the river and saw lots of herons during her trip. She thought one of them might have been the bird she helped, but she wasn’t completely sure.
“I go out there a lot, so I will definitely be keeping my eye out for him and see how he’s doing.”
Preventable incidents
Novak said it isn’t uncommon to hear about birds caught up in fishing line and hooks.
She said the wildlife institute has seen a variety of blue herons, ducks, loons, ospreys and other birds.
“Anytime a call comes in like this, it’s not shocking, I’ll put it that way,” said Novak.
In the past, she said the blue herons have become entangled because they see a shiny little object in the water — thinking it’s a fish — and try to go after it.
When this happens, Novak said there are several potential outcomes for the bird, including injury — especially if it tries to untangle itself — infection from the injury and also possibly lead poisoning.
The lead poisoning could occur if a bird were to consume something like a sinker, which is a weight used with a fishing lure that also often contains lead, she said.
Novak urges people to pick up any gear they see that’s been left behind, or make sure to dispose of it properly once they’re done fishing.
“It can be frustrating sometimes because these are preventable things. If people can just pick up their gear … we can minimize these type of entanglements,” she said.
“An animal left all tangled in gear isn’t something that usually is going to survive, because it does get worse and worse if they can’t get it off themselves.”
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