Bird with a fish stuck in its throat seen wandering North Carolina beach, video shows

Seabirds have a miraculous ability to swallow large fish, but something went very wrong over the weekend for a bird on the southern coast of North Carolina.

Video posted on Facebook shows the cormorant is wandering the beach with a fish lodged in its throat — along with a fishing hook.

Skywatch Bird Rescue shared the video Sunday, with a plea for people to report sightings of the bird so rescuers can save it. (The rescue line is 855-407-3728.) The bird was last seen Saturday at Kure Beach, about 15 miles south of Wilmington, the agency reported.

“When volunteers approached to attempt capture, he flew off. ... Looks like he grabbed someone’s catch and the (treble) hooks caught in his throat along with the fish,” Skywatch Bird Rescue wrote.

“As the days go by, he will become weaker and more exhausted, and we might be able to capture him then, if he survives that long.”

Skywatch Bird Rescue, based just north of Wilmington, is a non-profit that specializes in rescuing “injured, orphaned and misplaced wild birds.”

The agency’s brief video shows the fish is caught in such a way that its tail remains out of the cormorant’s bill. The bird is seen repeatedly stretching its neck in the video, in an attempt to force the fish down.

Hundreds have shared the clip since Sunday, including community groups in Kure Beach, Carolina Beach, Wilmington and Oak Island. “This is a horror,” wrote one commenter.

Cormorants are known to spend the winter (October through March) in and around North Carolina’s sounds, according to the Center for Conservation Biology. A video posted on YouTube in January showed thousands of cormorants standing along the shore on Ocracoke Island, which is indicative of “explosive population growth,” the CCB say.

All About Birds reports the species is known to “float low on the surface of water and dive to catch small fish,” which could explain how the cormorant snagged an already hooked fish.

This story was originally published December 28, 2020 at 6:10 PM.