A Sad Little Beach Hug

KEEPING BREVARD BEACHES CLEAN

FOR LOVE OF PEOPLE AND ANIMALS

You never know what the day will bring.  Today's beach cleanup began as usual.  A beautiful Florida day--80 degrees today--(25C) lots of plastic chunks and chips everywhere and a few young surfers taking advantage of the smooth rollers.  As we walked along I did notice there was more clear plastic than usual.

My partner in grime, Lee, ready to tackle
Satellite Beach

Moments before his passing

After about 20 minutes of taking in the beauty of the day and collecting as much trash as we could find, I noticed one of the surfers had left the water and was staring at something on the beach.  Lee and I approached him and saw that he was looking at a seagull in distress.  The bird couldn't hold his head up and there was a large bulge in his crop.  He was gasping and choking. I spent a year working at the Florida Wildlife Hospital on US 1 in Palm Shores and have handled lots of seabirds.  I had Lee remove his shirt to cover the bird's head, this makes picking up a bird much easier.  I have had a seagull clench down on one of my fingers before; OUCH! is really the only thing that comes to mind that I can print here.

 I dumped the trash from my tote bag into Lee's and covered the seagull with Lee's shirt then placed the bird as gently as I could into my tote bag.  Racing toward the hospital across the Pineda Causeway,  we hoped and prayed for the little guy.  The gull was calling out and moving around, his eyes were flickering. I hoped this was a sign that he stood a chance, although, I do know that  just before a bird dies they often have a burst of energy to make themselves appear healthier than they are.  This is to keep those of its own group at bay. Birds will work together to kill a dying bird to keep the attention of predators away from their group. 

I began to lose heart as his eyes slowed down and then closed halfway.  His beak opened wide and he stopped moving altogether.  He was gone.  Poor little guy.  I brought him into the hospital and talked with Sue, the hospital's director - I hadn't seen her in about 9 years and it was nice to see her; even though it was not a happy moment.  I hoped they could do a necropsy to see what had done the gull in.  Unfortunately government regulations and costs wouldn't allow it.  The attendant  felt his neck and said it was crunchy.  I'm not an expert by any means but my best guess is either a broken neck or plastic ingestion.  

Needless to say it was a somber end to our cleanup.  We did remove a good bunch of trash and three feet of rope. My new total is 732 ft. or 244 yds.
Thanks for dropping by.  Please visit

www.floridawildlifehospital.org and check out their website.  They do great things for critters.

Go hug a beach!

Getting to the heart
of litter

Part of the days haul