Promised Update On Mergansers Entangled In Fishing Line

Some of you may remember that on February 17th I posted about the problem of birds getting caught in discarded fishing line at Willow Pond, one of our urban fisheries here in Murray, Utah.  I had photographed some Common Mergansers that had fishing line entangled on their bodies and fish hooks stuck in their bills.   This merganser had lost a foot to fishing line.  Another had a fish-hook stuck in its bill and other ducks had line wrapped around their legs and wings. Here’s a link to that original post: https://featheredphotography.com/blog/2013/02/17/one-footed-merganser-in-a-hurry/#comment-21517 In comments, many of you were as disturbed as I was about the carelessness of anglers and the resulting suffering of birds and some suggested a variety of methods to help address the issue.  I chose to contact Tom Wharton, a long-time and highly respected columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune, to see if he was interested in doing a story on the situation at Willow Pond.   When I sent him a link to the merganser post he responded almost immediately and asked if I would meet him at the pond and give him some background. So a couple of days later Mia and I met him at the pond and spent most of an hour with him reviewing the situation.  He was enthusiastic about writing a column on the subject and trying to help birds. That column was published three days ago but I’ve been on a camping/photo trip and couldn’t post about it until now.  But since many of you had asked me to update any developments…

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One-footed Merganser In A Hurry

I live near a local fishing pond that attracts a few fish-eating birds, particularly in the late winter and early spring.  For the last few days there’s been a pair of Common Mergansers on the pond and yesterday morning I was finally able to get relatively close to them for a few minutes.  The pond was still about half covered with ice but it’s melting fast.    1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light Most of the time there wasn’t much action with the cormorants but once, when this bird apparently thought its companion might have caught a fish, it rushed over to investigate.  It wasn’t until this morning when I began culling and processing the images that I noticed that it was missing its left foot.      1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light  Since they use their webbed feet to help propel them along the surface of the water this bird could really scoot for having only one foot.      1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light  This image shows the missing foot best.      1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light This shot, and the next two, are of the other merganser.  As you can see it had some kind of fishing lure/hook stuck in its lower mandible.  It doesn’t look like a typical lure so perhaps it’s what’s left of a fish that it had tried to swallow when the hook and/or line got stuck in its bill.      1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500…

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