SAN DIEGO — Rescuers were able to free a large bird that got tangled up in fishing line and was left dangling about 70 feet off the ground at Mission Bay Thursday.

San Diego Humane Society called in San Diego Fire-Rescue to help save the osprey — a bird of prey commonly seen around local bodies of water — after getting calls from parkgoers who saw the creature dangling from the line by its wing near the top of a eucalyptus tree on the east side of the bay.

“They’d done everything they could to try get the bird free and loose and it was just too high up in the tree to reach,” Batt. Chief Michael Howell told OnScene.TV. “It was approximately 70 feet (high) in the tree.”

A fire truck backed up to the eucalyptus, two firefighters headed up the ladder and managed to cut the string away. “The bird, fortunately, flew right away,” Howell said.

A group of people who had anxiously gathered for over an hour to watch the effort applauded as the bird flapped off.

“It’s very fortunate we were able to do something like this today,” Howell said.