NARN Northwest Animal
Rights Network
April 2018
With spring comes fishing season, and that means more wildlife and pets can be entangled in fishing line.
Bonnie Anderson and Diane Weinstein will never forget the day they found
a little American coot being strangled by fishing line off a dock on a small
lake in their community. One end of the line was caught under the dock and
the other end was around the bird’s neck so that it could not swim away.
There have been other incidents — a grebe tangled in fishing line found
along a major road, a female mallard dangling by a wing that was caught in
fishing line from a tree. “We were finally able to cut the line, but she
went underwater and never came up. We think she became further entangled
under the water,” Bonnie said.
They’re heartbreaking stories from one community — and they are,
unfortunately, not alone.
With spring comes fishing season, and that means more wildlife and pets can
be entangled in fishing line.
Dr. John Huckabee, a veterinarian at PAWS in Lynnwood, treats animals
hurt by the fishing line around Green Lake and elsewhere — even from
people’s yards, where they sometimes hang ornaments with the line. Songbirds
and owls get them wrapped around their necks.
“All too frequently, it causes a tourniquet effect around a leg, a toe, a
foot, sometimes around wings,” Dr. Huckabee said. “The line is very strong
and when, say, a gull gets it wrapped around a wing, it can cut through skin
of the wing and render them flightless. They can experience tourniquet
necrosis and amputation of the limb.”
He testified last year in Olympia on behalf of legislation that Bonnie and
Diane spearheaded — an effort to establish a statewide monofilament fishing
line recovery and recycling program.
A story that came up during testimony was of a harbor seal pup whom PAWS had
rehabilitated and released with a flipper tag and a satellite transmitter to
track her location. The transmitter signal disappeared following several
weeks of movement throughout Puget Sound, and the pup’s whereabouts were a
mystery — until a diver found the seal entangled in fishing line and drowned
under the Edmonds fishing pier.
The line is transparent in water and ensnares birds, mammals, fish and
reptiles. Even pets are affected, with vets having to retrieve fishing line
and hooks from their stomachs.
“Carelessly discarded monofilament fishing line takes a terrible toll on
wildlife,” Bonnie said. “They suffer prolonged and painful deaths when their
bodies or extremities become entangled. This often results in slow
strangulation, starvation, loss of limbs or infections.
She and Diane began their project four years ago in a presentation to their
homeowners association’s board of directors. They agreed to place a fishing
line collection bin on the dock where the little American coot had
struggled. A sign explains the need to protect wildlife and properly dispose
of fishing line.
Their next step was reaching out to state officials. State Sen. Mark Mullett
was interested, and they worked with him to draft the bill for which Dr.
Huckabee testified. The bill didn’t make it to a vote, but Sen. Mullett got
funding for the program. At the same time Bonnie and Diane found success at
city and county levels. The Department of Natural Resources also has been
very helpful, they said.
By the end of 2017, fishing line collection bins were installed at 93
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) water access locations, 18
piers and ports, 25 state parks, 42 city and county parks, including 19 King
County locations. Approximately 42,000 feet of monofilament fishing line has
been removed from bins at the WDFW locations.
Fishing line recycling receptacle
Bonnie said the state of Florida pioneered this type of program, which
also is in effect in 38 states.
The city of Edmonds in Washington recently installed five boxes on its
deep-water fishing pier.
“We wanted to find a way to highlight the problem, and when Bonnie
approached us and then provided all the plans for how to make the bins, it
made it really easy for us to call attention to the fact that these plastic
products people use for fishing really need to be kept out of the marine
ecosystem,” said Jennifer Leach, who runs the Edmonds Beach Ranger Program.
People are putting their fishing line in the bins — along with coffee cups
and Coke bottles and cigarette butts, she said.
As vegans, we don’t fish and so are not leaving fishing line in the water.
But we can help by contacting our communities’ parks, piers and recreation
centers to ask them to install recycling bins for fishing line. In the
interim, those organizations can ask people to pick up line and put it in
covered receptacles. It’s important that they be covered, so that birds will
not try to use the line for nesting material.
“It has to be recycled,” Bonnie said. “If it’s put in the trash, before it
is covered at landfills wildlife can become entangled and birds can carry it
off.
Bonnie designed decals explaining that putting the line in the trash isn’t
the best solution.
She has requested the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to post the
fishing line recycling program and bin locations on their website. This will
help to promote the program and responsible disposal of fishing line.
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