From: Cliff G.
Date: Summer 2003
Place: Ontario , Canada
Age: 22

      In the Summer of 2003 in Ontario , i was at my Cottage and Decided to Go for a ride on My Personal Water Craft ( PWC ) which was a 97' Sea-doo XP and my Dad Came with me on the 2000 Yamaha GP1200R. We Went out to Go to an Island that was around 20+ Minutes away from our cottage. We Usually went to the island to see if anything interesting washed up on shore there. So we were getting close , i was farther ahead then my dad and from a far distance i saw something jump in the water. From where i was i couldnt tell what it was but it didnt look like an animal , so i kept driving closer and closer to it. As i got about 100 feet from it it looked like a dead bird as i couldnt see the head and it look to be just floating in the water , but just then it jumped very fast and was flopping around which really shocked and scared me as it looked like it was still moving with no head. So by this time i was very interesting in what it was and got as close as i could and saw it was a Seagull Bird Maximum Size and saw that a Fishing Hook Was Caught in its Left Wing and in its Head , causing its head to be stuck to its wing and making it look as though he had no head. What i Believe happened was it got the hook caught in its wing and it was trying to get it out with its mouth thus accidently getting its head caught as well. I Then Waved my Dad down to come over and see it , he came over and we idled there for a few minutes thinking if there was anything we could possibly do. My Dad didnt think there was anything to do and sayed to just leave , but i knew i couldnt do that , i couldnt leave knowing this Bird was in Pain like this and ultimately would die soon. So First i sayed lets see if we can catch it , it was moving from the land on the island to water and back and forth. i thought since i have the Seadoo i could get close enough and jump and grab it in shallow water however when i thought of this , the bird started swimming out and out and out and was now in very deep water , so i got extremely close to it but i could not jump off and grab it as it would be hard to both swim , hold onto the bird and make sure my seadoo doesnt float away. so i started driving around making waves , pushing it towards the shore and my Dad did the same ... We got it to go into shore , but it then went fast and got on land and started going into the dense forest. so i jumped of my seadoo and had the boat stuck half on the shore half in water. I Went upto the forest line and could see the bird sitting there. I told my dad to Stay at the water line and i would go in and try and catch it or at least scare it back out so my dad could catch it. so i Go into the Dense Forest having to break through a lot of dead trees , and bush etc. i also got at least 2 huge spider webs in the face which i didnt care for to much :) . i then got behind the bird so we were in good position , if it went ahead my dad would get it and back i would get it ... we sort of moved on it together and i made a jump and caught the Bird. It gave a little jump to get away but not that much. I Now got to the see what was wrong and the fishing Lure had two hooks on it , the one was caught in its wing , the other was in the bird Nose. It was hard to try and get either out as the tension on the hooks were huge, so we decided to try and break the lure in half , So my Dad got some plyers out of one of the boats and tryed to break it ,,, it took at least a few minutes to break it as it was one tuff lure. We then began working on the hook in its nose ... tryed for a long time , but just would not come out. so we tryed the wing , and after five or more minutes we finally got the hook out. Now back to the Hook in its nose , My Dad was giving up as it would just not come out. Then after we almost gave up we just gave it the smallest pull and it amazingly just popped out , we were both shocked at how easily it just popped out after all that time really trying to get it out ... Also the whole time Working on the bird , the bird just sat there , it never once struggled and it was almost like it knew that we were helping it. It would look up at me every now and then during our struggle as well , almost like saying thank you for helping me. Anyway once the hooks were out , i Picked up the bird and walked out of the forest to the shore of the lake and i sat him down in the water gently and he jumped up as fast as possible and started flying. Watching him jump up and fly away was one of the most amazing experiences to me. i Just stood there and watch him fly away untill i couldnt see him any longer. Knowing Me and my Dad saved this birds life was an amazing feeling and is something ill never soon forget.