Deadly lure for birdlife
A SEAGULL flies around with a kebab skewer stabbed deep into his back just millimetres from his spine while a pelican struggles to eat with part of her pouch ripped off by a shark or whale.
These are just two of the 500 birds Main Beach man Rowley Goonan will save this year through his Wild Bird Rescues service.
The 64-year-old’s most recent rescue, Nipper the seagull, was believed to have been stabbed as he tried to find food.
The bird was assessed by a vet this week and was lucky enough to be returned to the wild the same day.
Last month, Mr Goonan captured a pelican, now known as Matilda, at Jumpinpin with a large pouch wound caused by a whale or bull shark.
She was taken to Currumbin Wildlife Hospital where vets sewed up the injury. She was returned to the wild two weeks later.
Mr Goonan, who has been rescuing birds on the Gold Coast for the past 11 years, said he had seen terrible and satisfying things in his job.
“It is very satisfying to catch these birds like Nipper and Matilda who have no chance,” he said.
“Nearly always I see a tear in the (pelican’s) pouch and a few years ago someone had slashed the pouch with a knife. This skewer in Nipper, had it entered a couple of millimetres to the spine it would have been over for him.
“He was flying around but it must have been painful.”
Mr Goonan is on call to bird emergencies from 6am to 9pm every day and relies on his own money and donations to do his work.
He said fishing lines caused the biggest number of injuries.
An osprey he had recently rescued with line around its ankle died in hospital because it had been unable to catch food.
“Fish-hook injuries in birds are just horrendous,” he said. “I attend about 250 birds a year that are just fishing line-related injuries.
“Fishers standing on the rocks or fishing platform will change their hook and they cut that line off and drop it on the ground. There is a huge risk of getting it caught around a bird’s legs. The bird suffers excruciating pain.
“What starts out as a simple act of littering has huge consequences later on.”