Saving a Scavenger

 

The word went out on Facebook after calls to the MNRF proved fruitless to aid this year’s raven who was dangling upside down like a bat from a shepherd’s hook. A Wawa resident had placed a shepherd’s hook above a tray of water to provide a perch for the birds who liked to drink from the water. Unfortunately, a young raven perched on the hook, and when he/she tried to fly off, couldn’t.

In distress, the neighbour of the yard, and his neighbour to the side tried to find assistance. She called the MNRF, the OPP, and the Municipality. But to no avail, no one wanted to help. From the Ontario Field Ornithologists website, Ravens are considered one of eight specially protected birds: “American White Pelican, Belted Kingfisher, Gray Jay, Blue Jay, Common Raven, Rusty Blackbird, Brewer‘s Blackbird and Yellow-headed Blackbird. You cannot hunt or trap these birds or any other birds wild by nature and not a game bird. Nor can you take their nests or eggs.”

 

Well, with no one offering any assistance, the concerned neighbour posted to facebook looking for help. Three came within minuted to help. Brenda Grundt with fabric work gloves carefully grasped the young raven by the feet and supported the head and back with her other hand. Then she was able to remove it from the hook. Fishing line was entangled around both feet and had gotten wrapped around the perch. She brought the raven to Richard Davidson who was able to cut the fishing line away from the raven’s feet and claws. Thanks to Dan Stelmach who ran to get scissors when we knew what the problem was. The raven offered no resistance, in fact, he was quite calm. The surgery went well with every single piece of the fishing line that had been there long enough to cut into the raven’s flesh.

Once all the line was removed, the raven was carefully placed back on the ground to fly off. For several long minutes, it seemed as if it wouldn’t fly off. We all feared that perhaps wings were damaged. Finally, it tried to take off and failed. It turned around though and with wings crawled to the fenceline, perhaps looking for shelter. Several long minutes passed and the raven tried to fly up onto the fence, scrabbling with wings and feet to perch – failing, and falling back to the ground. We were all terrified that this bird wouldn’t survive. Again the raven tried to fly, this time successful. A long, low-level flight across the street and onto a rooftop.

 

We were all so happy that the raven would be ok after this traumatic experience. A huge thank you to Peter for offering water and a perch for birds in his yard, and to Peter and Suzette for both trying to get help for the trapped raven. Thanks to Richard and Dan for their help, and Katherine for grabbing a few pictures of the morning’s events.

The MNRF has all sorts of regulations about live baitfish, how many and what type of bait, the spread of aquatic invasive species – but nothing on where or how to dispose of unwanted fishing line.

The Aurora Bassmasters have installed eight “Fishing Line Recycle Depots” around the Lake Simcoe watershed, but Wawa-news is unaware of any of these depots in the area. Berkley does ask anglers to “pick up discarded fishing line and recycle it by dropping it off in a recycling collection bin, or mail it directly to our collection center at: Berkley Recycling, 1900 18th Street, Spirit Lake, Iowa 51360”.