Illegal angling hook
This post should have appeared two weeks ago, but didn’t due to a technical hitch getting it off my ipad! Apologies….
On Tuesday evening I collected the boys from school, and as eldest had decided that he didn’t want to kayak as usual, we took Bingo for a walk around a lake with a friend and her two schnauzers.
Rounding the lake we spotted a mallard with a broken beak. The poor creature’s bottom beak had split in two and was dangling. It’s top bill was fine and it was trying, unsuccessfully, to scoop food over the broken beak.
Initially, its plumage seemed glossy, but when it got out of the lake it was clear that its wing feathers also looked slightly askew.
We called the RSPCA, but they can’t come out to wildlife unless the animal is confined (trapped, in a box etc) because often the officers turn up and the creatures have gone. The charity just doesn’t have the resources.
So we tried to confine it.
A friendly man from The Carp Shack loaned me a massive net, but the bird was jumpy and although it couldn’t fly anything more than a flutter it wasn’t having any of it. After an hour I gave up. Without waders and some gloves, I was on hiding to nothing.
The man from The Carp Shack had promised to return this morning and see if he can catch it.. The wretched creature will otherwise be condemned to a slow painful death from starvation and thirst. Unless got by a fox, of course. (Is it my imagination, or are foxes doing well as a species?)
We can only speculate as to how the poor creature to that way? It was unlikely to have been fighting with other ducks – they pull out feathers and drown, not split lips! It’s probably caught its bill on something? I have suspicions that he culprit was one of the illegal angling hooks we were shown last year, which are fearsome looking things – more than capable of ripping a duck’s beak in two.
And today, driving down a country road, some fellow boaters were trying to help a stag out. His head was stuck in railings. This time, the RSPCA did come out, and last thing I saw, the officer was trying to help. I’ve since learned they succeeded. (I’d not seen a male muntjack with antlers before.)
Both accidents were caused because of the way human’s live. Both were distressing to both animal and humans.
The RSPCA performs a vital role: the best I can do is hold out a begging bowl: donations please! RSPCA
Filed under: Dramas Tagged: wildlife
