Days 104-105 Streaky Bay (20-21 December) Week 16

How do you catch a pelican?  Ask John, pseudo pelican catcher.  There are a lot of pelicans here and of course with all the avid fisherman they hang around for the scraps when the fishermen return from a day's fishing and are filleting their fish.  There are fish cleaning stations along the foreshore which is where the pelicans hang out.  Anyway there was a pelican with a badly damaged beak and he/she was unable to feed normally.  The only way it could feed is if a kind fisherman threw scraps for it and aimed just right for it to swallow.  But then it would go into the water and regurgitate the food and another pelican or seagull would snatch it away. A lot of people were concerned for the pelican but didn't really know what to do. I went to the caravan park office to find out what was being done for the pelican and they advised that the vet had been informed and if someone can catch it the vet would look at it.  Yeah right, catching a pelican is not easy without the right technique and this one was quite timid possibly because people had been trying to catch it.  Back to the foreshore and the pelican got close enough to try a rugby tackle and John tried and missed it by centimetres, damm.  That technique was not going to work.  The next day John was determined he was going to catch it.   This time he went to the office to ask what was happening with the pelican and this time was told they had given up trying to catch it.  So it was up to someone else.  Of course each day the park is getting busier and busier and for the pelicans sake it was best to catch it sooner rather than later.  This day it was warmer and the pelican was hanging around the fish cleaning station trying to drink water from a hose that some kind person had left running for it.  It was quite upsetting to see it the way it was.  John called the vet to check their availabilty (its a Sunday) as we didn't want to catch it if they couldn't see it.  The apathetic vet was hosting a birthday party and wasn't available until late afternoon but if it could be caught they would see it.  We then tried to find local wildlife carers and found no one.  Eventually we called the Seabird Rescue Organisation in NSW and spoke to a really helpful man who agreed that if it wasn't caught it would suffer a slow painful death by starving and gave us some advice on how to catch it without harming it.   He tried to find a local carer without success.  The agreed option was to make a snare atttached to a piece of conduit that acted like a fishing line and tempt the pelican into the snare and then flick the line like catching a fish.  The snare goes around the foot.  Sounds nasty but in reality it is very calm and gentle.  So snare was set in place. The plan was to entice the pelican into the snare with fish and Kev would 'catch' it, I would put a towel over its eyes and release the snare from its foot.  Well the whole plan went off without a hitch except I had gone for a dip in the water and because of the sloping beach I had to wade out about 10 miles before it got to my knees and missed the whole thing.   I got back in time to go to see the pelican go into a box and then go with John to the vets house - yes she didn't have a car? and deliver the pelican to her kids birthday party.  When we met the vet she didn't inspire confidence at all.  However we have done all we can do and hopefully the vet will do the right thing.  She murmured something about it still being able to feed and supergluing its beak together??  John rode into town today to visit the vet to see what the outcome was but they were closed!  Watch this space. He was the hero on the beach today and people were telling the story of the pelican catcher.