Clean up discarded fishing line, conservation group says, after 3 cygnets died after becoming tangled

CBC

4 days ago

Watching a trumpeter swan cygnet die was not on Louisa Lamberink-van Wijk's list of things to see during her birthday this year.
Lamberink-van Wijk, who is the vice president of the Halton Hills Turtle Guardians, was having her birthday dinner around 8 p.m. on Tuesday when she saw a post in a local Facebook group about trumpeter swan cygnets all tangled up in a fishing line.
She then received a call from Peter Duncanson, the president of the same organization, about the cygnets. She rushed over to help, but it was already too late.
"Two were obviously dead," she said. "The one that was alive was swimming around, dragging the other two along with him as [best] as he could because… that's heavy for a young swan to do that."
With some help from Duncanson and other volunteers, Lamberink-van Wijk was able to gently untangle the third cygnet. She took it home hoping to save its life and get it to a rehabilitation facility, but the young swan also died a few hours later.
Discarded fishing line, lead sinkers an issue
Trumpeter swans seemingly vanished from the Ontario landscape in the 1800s, until dedicated efforts were made to bring them back and monitor their numbers in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Today, trumpeter swans are listed as "not at risk" in the Species at Risk Act's animal registry, thanks to the efforts of groups like the Trumpeter Swan Conservation of Ontario.
Nevertheless, Laurel Ironside, a licensed bird bander at the Trumpeter Swan Conservation Ontario, expressed concern about the fact that they see trumpeter swans getting caught on discarded fishing lines on a weekly basis.
"We don't want to lay blame [on anyone]," she said. "There's good anglers and there's bad anglers."
Ironside said most of their swan rescues are caused by discarded fishing lines and lead sinkers.
Ironside said lead sinkers affect not just many of the trumpeter swans that they rescue, but also other waterfowls. On Prince Edward Island, a study from the Atlantic Veterinary College in Charlottetown found that lead sinkers and ammunition caused nine per cent of deaths among Maritime bald eagles.
"It's a frustrating thing because we've educated the public for years already," Lamberink-van Wijk said. "It's not something, 'Oh, that will never happen to me.' It definitely does happen."
'I'm very disappointed'
While the cygnets were found in Halton region, Lamberink-van Wijk's frustration is something shared by Paul Kroisenbrunner, the current treasurer and former president of Kitchener Waterloo Cambridge Bassmasters.
"I'm very disappointed that some anglers would not be responsible enough to take their waste and dispose of it properly," he said. "We pride ourselves within Ontario and our overall parent organization [in the U.S.] as being conservation-minded."
Kroisenbrunner said it's not often that he hears about swans and other animals being tangled up in fishing lines within their community.
"Wildlife in general, all species of animals have a right to a clean and healthy environment," he said. "That's why we promote conservation, cleaning up after yourself, taking all your garbage with you and not leaving it on riverbanks or in parks or anywhere else where anglers are doing something that we love to do."
But there are things a responsible angler can do, says Lamberink-van Wijk — the easiest one is to ask for help.
She says people may feel embarrassed when they hook or get an animal tangled with their fishing line and they may just "cut the line and get out of there because you may not want people to know that this happened."
"If you hook an animal, call the wildlife centre, call somebody that can help, set aside the fact that you're embarrassed, and just fess up," she said. "Help the situation because in the end, you're going to help an animal."
To prevent similar situations from happening in the future, Lamberink-van Wijk says education is the number one tool.
The most obvious lesson from this unfortunate event, she says, is for anglers to make sure that they collect all their fishing gear before leaving.
"After weekends, we pick up handfuls of [fishing line] along the shoreline, and animals do get tangled up," she said. "Don't leave it behind because animals get stuck and killed."
To report trumpeter swans in distress or that need rescuing, send the Trumpeter Swan Conservation of Ontario a message on their Facebook group