The species' common and specific name honours Hendrik Severinus Pel, who was governor of the Dutch Gold Coast (now Ghana) from 1840 till 1850.

[12][13] Adults are colored a rich ginger-rufous with dense dark bars to the upperparts and scaling to the underparts.

The two adult sexes are similar looking, but females are generally less rufous in color and have a more indistinct facial disc.

Unlike the eagle-owls, the ear tufts of the Pel's fishing owl are barely visible, giving it a very round-headed appearance.

[5] The song of the male Pel's fishing owl is a deep, sonorous, horn-like boom, first a single and then a higher pitched huhuhu.

The male also utters a ringed hoot, much higher pitched than those of most eagle-owls, followed by a deep, soft grunt: whoommmm-wot or hooomm-hut.

[5] It is found throughout a large part of sub-Saharan Africa, but it is generally rather local, uncommon, and absent from drier regions.

It is patchily distributed in Nigeria, Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and in central Africa from the coast to eastern Zaire and discontinuously to South Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, and Tanzania and southwards to Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and eastern South Africa.

The species is largely residential and has no seasonal movement, although young, nonbreeding birds may wander somewhat before claiming their own territories.

[14] In one case, a Pel's fishing owl was observed to prey on a baby Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus).

[5] The nest is a natural hollow or cavity in an old, shady tree close to the water, quite often around where thick branches emerge from the trunk.

The fish eagles and Verreaux's eagle-owls (Bubo lacteus) are perhaps the only predatory threat to this species, though encounters between the two large owls are likely very rare due to significantly different habitat preferences.

[16] Due to the relatively late stage at which the young become fully independent, Pel's fishing owls usually only breed in alternate years.

Due to the dependence on large waterways with abundant fish and mature trees, they are a highly sensitive to destruction of their habitat.

In some places, water pollution may pose a further problem, and overfishing, particularly where human populations are rapidly increasing, can also deplete the owl's food supplies.

Changes in water supply can have knock-on effects on the riverine forest in which Pel's fishing owls roost and nest, and in some areas this habitat is being further degraded by wood-cutting and even by tree damage by large elephant populations.

Even where the species occurs in protected areas, human activities upstream can still impact fish stocks and nesting trees.