Brown and white pelicans are frequently injured by fishing line, hooks, and monofilament — injuries that cause slow, agonizing deaths or permanent disability if not treated.
Pelicans entangled in monofilament line suffer progressively as line cuts through skin and muscle. Hooked birds may fly for days with hooks embedded in bills or bodies before succumbing. The suffering in untreated fishing entanglement cases can extend over weeks as infection, tissue death, and starvation accumulate. Wildlife rehabilitation centers see the consequences daily — birds that arrive in extreme distress after extended periods of injury. Most of these harms are preventable through responsible fishing behavior.