Long-leggedy beasties, such as these two young black-crowned night herons that lost their mother to monofilament iine left near the nest, are especially at risk from discarded fishing gear. Note that the white bird in this photo is a stuffed surrogate used to help prevent imprinting of the chicks on people.

Introduction

Hi, I'm Dr. Heather Barron and I'm mentoring my veterinary intern, Dr. Alexandra Troiano in this research project. I became interested in the effects of fishing gear on wildlife shortly after becoming the Medical Director at the Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife (CROW) when I noticed that there was an upward trend in the number of these cases presenting to our wildlife hospital. We've made every effort to prevent these injuries through our Mind Your Line initiative (you can learn more about this at www.mindyourline.org ). Despite this, a large number of animals still present for this problem and we want to find a better way to manage these cases. CROW typically has anywhere from 6-12 ongoing research projects at any given time and we have successfully completed and published a number of these (see some of our select citations).