Australian Seabird and Turtle Rescue is calling on all fishers to report entangled seabirds, rather than cutting their lines and simply abandoning them, and wants the public to contact their hotline number so volunteers can respond to any emergencies.

Lisa Hood, the coordinator of the south coast branch of Australian Seabird and Turtle Rescue says that most people simply cut their fishing lines if a bird gets entangled.

“80 per cent of of all call outs involve fishing lines entangling seabirds and often its condemning them to a slow painful death.”

She says anyone in the Illawarra should instead ring their 24-hour hotline on 0431 282 238 when they see an endangered animal, and a volunteer will arrive promptly to help out.

These sorts of rescues receive lots of public support from different agencies, and she even had the bomb squad help out with a rescue in southern Sydney with two entangled pelicans.

This was highlighted last week in a rescue of a silver gull in Kiama Harbour that played out live on social media on the Kiama Community Page on Facebook.

Kiama local Daniel was walking his kelpie Kippas when he spotted a gull trapped in a fishing line floating in Kiama Harbour.

He reported it to the group, and very promptly a local Kiama rescuer named Byron turned up on his surfboard and performed a successful rescue by cutting and removing the entangling fishing lines. 

The silver gull, a local native species, was rehabilitated in a humid crib for two days recovering from shock and extreme cold and on Tuesday 27th June was released safely back into the ocean at Black Beach in Kiama.

The rescued gull, now living it's best life

The result is not always a happy success like this one, and Australian Seabird and Turtle Rescue South Coast has supplied us with the following graphic pictures from seabirds who are often left too long or are too severely injured to survive .

A warning: some of these pictures are graphic and shocking in nature. Photos supplied by Australian Seabird and Turtle Rescue South Coast and Kiama Community Page.