• picture
  • picture
  • picture
  • picture
Public Radio's Environmental News Magazine (follow us on Google News)

Field Note: Fishing Line Endangers Birds

Published: July 6, 2018


By Mark Seth Lender


A flock of terns in flight. (Photo: Mark Seth Lender)

Living on Earth's Explorer in Residence, Mark Seth Lender, reflects on his tangle with a tern and fishing line on the 4th of July.

Fishing line is a worst enemy of birds. For all their visual acuity, there is something about it – the translucency perhaps, that confounds them. They tangle in discarded monofilament all the time. It severs their feet and tears up their insides if they swallow it. Wings are damaged. Throats encircled. Birds of all sizes and kinds can and frequently do die from encounters with fishing line. So when I see a tangle of line on the beach – careful of the hooks that may be hiding within – I put it in my pocket and take it away. It helps, it is not a lot of effort and in my experience most of us want to help.

While I was working to untangle the common tern of this story, two apparently contradictory events occurred. The boys and the bystanders all tried to help. They took my Leatherman out of my pocket for me (my hands were full of irate bird) and opened the pliers, and steadied me on the slip-sliding seaweed blanketing the rocks. They pinched the line where I told them to keep it slack. And then, they took out their phones and took pictures! Both things. Same people. At more or less the same time.

-----------------------

Link to the original essay, "Tern About"

Back to Mark Seth Lender Field Notes


 

Living on Earth wants to hear from you!

Living on Earth
62 Calef Highway, Suite 212
Lee, NH 03861
Telephone: 617-287-4121
E-mail: comments@loe.org

Newsletter [Click here]

Donate to Living on Earth!
Living on Earth is an independent media program and relies entirely on contributions from listeners and institutions supporting public service. Please donate now to preserve an independent environmental voice.

Newsletter
Living on Earth offers a weekly delivery of the show's rundown to your mailbox. Sign up for our newsletter today!

Sailors For The Sea: Be the change you want to sea.

Creating positive outcomes for future generations.

Innovating to make the world a better, more sustainable place to live. Listen to the race to 9 billion

The Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment: Committed to protecting and improving the health of the global environment.

Contribute to Living on Earth and receive, as our gift to you, an archival print of one of Mark Seth Lender's extraordinary wildlife photographs. Follow the link to see Mark's current collection of photographs.

Buy a signed copy of Mark Seth Lender's book Smeagull the Seagull & support Living on Earth