‘I was devastated when I saw it’: Sault woman finds Canada goose wounded by fishing line (3 photos)

Aquatic birds and discarded fishing lines are not a good mix.

And, sadly, geese and ducks are often injured by old fishing lines, as the Sault’s Sandra Strain found out.

Sandra and friend Jody Leonard were walking along the Sault waterfront Aug. 11, close to the Roberta Bondar Pavilion, when the couple spotted something odd about a Canada goose on the boardwalk.

“I walked right by and it didn’t move, it didn’t get up, and I didn’t get why it wasn’t moving,” Sandra told SooToday.

“We went up to it, it stood up and its legs were tied right together (by a fishing line). It was trying to hop and fly. Jody caught it from behind and it just let him hang on to him and he held him. A man came up and cut the line and unravelled it from the one leg, and the other leg was bad, really bad.”

The unidentified man cut the line from the goose with a knife.

Sandra estimated it took about 15 minutes to completely unravel the line from the bird.

“It must have went around the legs when the bird was younger, a baby, because you can tell from the close-ups how it grew – you could tell the bird grew around the fishing line. The string was embedded into him but we unravelled it.”

“I was devastated when I saw it. So was Jody.”

The bird flew away after being freed from the fishing line.

“I went back to the area a couple of times after that and found it in the OLG parking lot, just sitting there. We tried to feed it, but the other birds kept hissing at it, and he would fly away, and it just bothers me. I’m worried about its legs and I hope there’s no permanent damage to the bird. You could tell it was getting weak.”

The last time Sandra spotted the bird was on the boardwalk between The Delta and Station Mall.

Sandra said afterward, near the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library’s main branch, she spotted two other similarly injured Canada geese that could “barely walk.”

“I talked to a security guard down there and he said that fishing-line stuff happens all the time, more to the ducks than the geese.”

“We’ve since been down there so much, I think the birds are getting to know us,” Sandra chuckled.

“We’ve been down there trying to feed them and find that one bird to see if it’s OK.”

So what to do if you’re able to keep hold of a wounded bird?

“This is an unfortunate situation,”stated Jolanta Kowalski, Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) spokesperson, in an email to SooToday.

“If people are concerned, we recommend they contact a wildlife rehabilitator who can help assess the situation, provide advice and reduce the risk of harm to yourself and the animal. Immediate and specialized care may be needed to help an animal; a wildlife rehabilitator can help determine the best course of action,” Kowalski stated.

A wildlife rehabilitator can be reached online through the MNRF.

Dr. Scott Craig of Northland Animal Hospital is the MNRF-designated wildlife rehabilitator for Sault Ste. Marie.

Craig was not immediately available for comment.