Time to Roam Magazine Issue 3 - June/July 2013 | Page 43

|

on the roam wildlife rescue

Pelican Rescue
Wildlife rescuer JUNE LE PLA loves to roam Australia and is always
on the lookout for troubled creatures wherever she goes.
At her home in the Hastings
region of NSW she’s known
as ‘The Pelican Lady’ for
her efforts in saving and
protecting the big white birds.
Here she writes about her
love for camping and her
most daring rescue.

Pictured: June rescues yet another
bird from the Port Macquarie
waterfront, hooked by a fishing line

Camping is a lifetime passion. I can’t
think of anything better than sitting under a
coolabah tree in the back of nowhere, where
the ground is red and the spinifex glistens
in the brilliant sunshine, Snuggling up in
my little tent on a cold night and listening
to barking owls having a chat, the pungent
smell of the Gidyea in flower, or watching the
estuarine crocs in the wild – living as they
have for thousands of years.
Cassowaries walking on the beach at
Etty Bay and the red kangaroo and their
magnificent blue flyer females at Riversleigh
and the interior deserts are all true
survivors of long ago.
While camping trips are all about soaking
up this magnificent country, I would never
leave an injured animal.
Pelicans are comical, clever, beautiful,
and definitely intelligent.
They can fly as high as a jet plane
and travel hundreds of kilometres
to places like Lake Eyre, and the
Wilson River in Queensland when

conditions out there are good.
They work as a team in fascinating
formations that would make an Olympic
synchronised water swimming team
envious when rounding up fish, taking
turns to feed. Yet they are amazing
prehistoric survivors and very tough
with a massive pain tolerance.
It is humbling to see the shocking
injuries that so many bear, yet they
struggle against all odds.
One bird that I attended hit a power line,
which completely severed the top beak
in half, yet it managed to outsmart me
for three months, before I could end its
suffering. The bird was barely able to feed
itself. Lice were in the shaft of every feather,
biting and causing unbelievable pain.
Although devoted to pelicans, my toughest
rescue involved a little red marsupial.
It happened in outback Queensland back
in 2006. Travelling in our trusty Mazda, my
husband Ron and I picked up a friend from
Thargomindah Airport and the three of us
Issue 03 June/July 2013

43