A pelican knocked on a NOAA office door and asked for help
This one made my whole day, so I have to share it.
Staff at the NOAA Fisheries lab in Panama City, Florida heard a knock at the door. Normal thing. Someone went to check. It wasn't a person. It was a brown pelican, standing there, tapping its beak on the door.
A biologist got a closer look and worked out why. The bird was tangled in heavy-duty fishing line. A double-barbed treble hook was stuck in its right wing, and it had cactus spines in its foot. So it was in real trouble, and it walked up to a building full of marine biologists and knocked.
The team got it restrained safely. Apparently that's not far off what they already do all day, since these are the same people who tag and surgically implant acoustic tags in sharks and sawfish. They got the line and the hook out, cleaned it up, and the pelican was released.
I keep thinking about the decision-making here. The bird had no way of knowing what that building was. It just picked a door with people behind it and went for it. And it happened to pick maybe the single best door in the whole state for that exact problem.
Good outcome, very silly path to it. I love it.
Source: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/knocking-help-pelicans-unlikely-rescue