With no boat of our own and no agency to help perform a water rescue, the pelican struggled for hours, fighting to get free, driving the hook deeper and deeper into bone. Finally, we found two heroic surfers who agreed to help. See video of the dramatic rescue HERE.
When she was brought to shore she was limp. She couldn't even hold her head up. I remember her eyes, too. They were reddened and fixed open - unresponsive.
Amazingly, she survived the night. This taught us something really important. She showed us that animals in this bad of condition - so weak and near death, still have a fighting chance and should be given an opportunity to recover.
A couple of days later the pelican was driven 100 miles to aquatic bird specialists, International Bird Rescue. Unfortunately, after weeks of expert medical treatment and rehabilitative care, the infection from the fishing hook took over.
Such a loss - an otherwise healthy pelican that had proven her ability to survive, living at least three years into adulthood, gone.
In the wake of this loss, however, a number of recently fledged young pelicans are being given a second chance.
A die-off of the weakest is normal this time of year - it's nature's way of culling the least fit so that only the strongest survive. As essential as this process is, witnessing nature at work is not always pleasant. Young pelicans are being found up and down the coast, weak and starving. The lucky ones wind up at International Bird Rescue where they are quickly fattened up and released.
Professional wildlife rehabilitators are careful to respect the laws of nature, but sometimes it makes sense to try and offset the imbalances Man is responsible for causing. Having lost the female pelican, for example, a bird that would have probably contributed to succeeding generations, it seems right that a handful of juvenile pelicans are given an opportunity to try and replace her.
International Bird Rescue, which manages two aquatic bird facilities in California, isn't going out of their way to look for ailing juvenile pelicans, but they are willing to treat the ones that are found and brought in. If you'd like to help our colleagues offset the cost of giving these youngsters a second chance, click here to adopt a pelican.
