[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhPDCTEnk-Q]
A week ago last Saturday we went out to my aunt’s cabin on North Manistique Lake. It was a pretty typical day at camp until my daughter Aster found a young seagull all tangled up in a fishing lure.
She sent her cousin Jenna running to find me. When I got to the scene, the poor thing had one treble hook in its leg and another in its bill, terrified, in pain, and unable to even fly because its head was all twisted around.
We caught the gull, and I held it while my brother cut away the lure with wire cutters. Unfortunately the barbed hooks were still embedded in the creature’s leg and bill. None of us felt qualified to conduct bird surgery on the spot. After many unsuccessful phone calls to the DNR, several vet clinics, a bird hotline, and wildlife rehabilitators, I was about to give up on finding help for her.
Then suddenly the phone rang. It was Dr. Plomer of the Curtis, MI Veterinary Clinic. Unlike the other vets, when he heard we had an injured seagull he offered right away to meet us at his clinic.
My sister in law Maureen and I jumped in her car. We managed to find the clinic (although not without getting a bit lost!). It wasn’t long before the hooks were out. Dr. Plomer (who we could tell right away was a kindred spirit) insisted that we name the bird so he could enter it into his database. So we named her Lucky.
Thank goodness for caring vets!
Hope you find Lucky’s return to the wild as inspiring as I do. (But apologies for the funky format. No one told Aster to hold the phone sideways for a video!)