An injured pelican was rescued by officers together with locals who helped capture it before it was taken to a vet for a medical check-up and rehabilitation.

The bird was recently spotted walking around on Caracol beach in the district of Chame, in Panama, and the clip was shared by the National Police of Panama on their Facebook page on Sunday. (21 March)

The video shows one of the officers slowly approaching the bird while another local resident tries to distract it using a piece of cloth.

The seemingly calm bird appears cooperative at first, but gets scared and tries to escape when it notices the officer close to her, but he still manages to quickly capture it before it sprints away.

The pelican was then gently wrapped up in a towel in order to calm it down before it was placed into a box and transported to a veterinary centre to be treated for its wing injury.

The National Police in Panama posted the video with the hashtag “Let’s protect our fauna”, encouraging citizens to help animals in need.

The video attracted a swarm of heart-warming comments from animal-loving netizens.

Facebook user ‘Jesus Antonio Cordova’ commented: “Interesting”.

Another user named ‘Efrain Torres Castillo’ wrote: “Excellent, blessings”.

And user ‘Benito Ojo’ added: Good job, arrest him for not wearing a mask.”