A crane colt was found dead in Beluga Slough last week after it was entangled in fishing line debris, Lora Haller, Islands and Oceans visitor center manager for Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, told the Homer News.
Earlier this month the visitor center got a report from Nina Faust, founder of Kachemak Crane Watch, that some adult cranes were behaving unusually in the slough. Staff from the center went down to investigate but didn’t see anything. On Tuesday of last week, a visitor came in with pictures showing the dead chick. The colt had monofilament fishing line wrapped around its leg.
“The colt died a very unfortunate death — because it was human caused — and unfortunately, no one saw it in time to be able to save the chick through rehabilitation. The parents are still down there mourning the chick. It’s very sad,” Haller said.
Another visitor at the center provided the collected fishing line debris and also alerted the center to what he had witnessed, Haller said. A group of volunteers later went into the slough to look for additional debris in hopes of avoiding any further impacts to cranes.
Haller said she can’t be sure where the line came from, but it was very clean and likely blew out of the back of someone’s vehicle at Bishop’s Beach. “It hadn’t been through many environmental elements yet,” she said.
“I hope that we can get the word out to people on cleaning up your fishing line, making sure it’s disposed of properly and how much it can really harm wildlife if it’s not taken care of. We want to get the word out to visitors and locals to clean up your waste,” Haller said.
Most of the slough itself is part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, a habitat protection zone, but that can’t stop debris from entering the refuge from places like Bishop’s Beach parking lot.
Faust told the Homer News that this particular crane family “has been visiting its human neighbors for over 20 years.” More information on local cranes is available at Kachemak Crane Watch at: http://cranewatch.org/?page_id=63.
