(WSVN) - A Pasco County worker spotted a fishing line in a bald eagle’s nest and thanks to his quick thinking, the bird’s babies were saved.
According to FOX13, the incident happened in Hudson when a general contractor was scaling a cell tower, Tuesday.
“Because of this big effort today the lives of four bald eagles were saved,” said Kim Rexroat, an Audubon EagleWatch coordinator for Pasco and Hernando counties.
She said a volunteer noticed a fishing line in a nest she monitored for a few years.
“I realized, ‘Oh, my God, there’s something up there,'” said Kathleen Westfall, a volunteer at Audubon EagleWatch.
Rexroat said the company worked with the Raptor Center of Tampa Bay, Florida Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife and the company that owns the tower to get a permit to be able to approach the nest.
“Those eaglets could’ve been tethered to the nest, they could’ve had fishing line wrapped around their feet where it cut off circulation, they could’ve lost a toe, and the eagles rely on their feet to hunt. It could’ve been horrible,” Rexroat said.
An employee with the tower company climbed to the top of the tower as the eaglets’ parents circled and watched closely.
“He pulled all of this filament line out of the nest and he searched for any hooks. There’s actually downy feathers on there that’s from the eaglets,” said Rexroat.
Westfall found the eagles and said their timing was everything.
“You don’t want a later period of time where the adults may abandon the little ones or the little ones get so freaked out that they flap and fall out of the nest,” she said.
Westfall and Rexroat peered through their lenses, watching the nest all day to make sure the parents stayed with their babies.
They said they found a lesson in the situation.
“We just ask that fishermen, anyone, when they discard their line to please dispose of it properly,” said Rexroat.
They said, at one point, one of the adult eagles had the fishing line in its mouth.
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