A brown pelican with a fishhook through its wing tapped on the glass door of a NOAA laboratory in Florida until the biologists opened it. They study sharks, and they had the hook out in ten minutes.

The staff at the Panama City fisheries laboratory were working on shark data when the tapping started at the front door. The bird on the step was tangled in heavy-duty fishing line, with a double-barbed treble hook deep in its right wing and cactus spines in its left foot. Three of them held it still, cut the barb off the hook and drew it out, then unwound several feet of line from the wing.

17 September 2026

A low tan-brick laboratory building with palm trees and a blue National Marine Fisheries Service sign reading Southeast Fisheries Science Center, Panama City Laboratory; a brown pelican stands small in the dark doorway at the far left — The pelican, at the far left, waiting at the main door of NOAA's Panama City Laboratory.
Photo: Ty Jones, NOAA Fisheries

A brown pelican tangled in fishing line tapped its beak on the glass front door of a NOAA laboratory in Panama City, Florida, until a biologist opened it, the agency said in an account published on Tuesday.

The building is the Southeast Fisheries Science Center's Panama City laboratory. Its staff work on shark and fish population data, and at sea they catch, tag and release sharks and sawfish. They were at that work when the tapping started at the glass entrance, and the bird was on the stoop, rapping the door again and again with its beak.

A brown pelican standing on a concrete step outside a door, looking over its shoulder at the camera, with a length of clear fishing line trailing behind it across the concrete — The pelican at the laboratory's back door, with monofilament line trailing behind it.
Photo: Albert Gabel, NOAA Fisheries

What they found

The pelican was tangled in heavy-duty fishing line. A double-barbed treble hook was embedded deep in its right wing, and it had cactus spines in its left foot.

The staff restrain sharks on deck to fit them with acoustic tags, and they handled the bird the same way. Annsli Hilton, Naeem Willett and Dr John Carlson held it still, snipped the barb off the hook and drew the hook out, then unwound several feet of monofilament from around the wing. NOAA said the bird stayed calm for the ten minutes it took.

Three people bent over a brown pelican held on a white cooler in a car park, one in blue gloves working at its wing with scissors and pliers laid out beside them, the bird's head tucked under the arm of a man in a black cap — Annsli Hilton, Naeem Willett and Dr John Carlson removing the hook.
Photo: Michelle Duncan, NOAA Fisheries

Ten minutes

The pelican was checked over and flew off with no hook and no line on it.

In the same account NOAA's biologists warned about discarded fishing line. It is close to invisible in the water and takes hundreds of years to break down, and it tangles, injures and kills coastal wildlife. They asked anglers to keep used line in a container, to drop scrap monofilament in the recycling bins at boat ramps, and to fish with barbless hooks.

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Written from NOAA Fisheries' own account, Knocking for Help: A Pelican's Unlikely Rescue, published 15 September 2026. The photographs are NOAA Fisheries', by Ty Jones, Albert Gabel and Michelle Duncan.