Sanctuary works to save birds

ST. PETERSBURG - On a hot, sunny Wednesday morning, Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary volunteer Liz Vreeland is patrolling the south fishing pier on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, chatting with fishermen and handing out flyers on what to do if you hook a bird on your fishing line.

"We'll pass'em out at the beginning of the pier, and before we can get to the end, we'll have calls back at the beginning for us to come help them rescue a bird," Vreeland said.

Since last November, Vreeland her team of volunteers have freed more than 200 birds, mostly pelicans -- half of them as they still dangled from someone's fishing line.

She says the winter months were incredibly busy, with fishermen standing shoulder-to-shoulder, a wall of fishing rods and line.

"They're not always trying to go for a fish. A lot of times the birds are just flying innocently by, parallel with the pier and they clip the lines right in the wing and they get tangled," Vreeland said.

In the couple of hours we spent with her today, we saw three birds in trouble. Someone left a seagull with a hook deeply embedded in the bird's mouth inside one of the cages the sanctuary leaves near the bait shop.

Only problem -- no one called to report it, so the bird was dehydrated, having been in there for at least a couple of days without food or water. Then Vreeland spotted a pelican with a bobber, and likely a hook under its wing. But it's on the other side: the east pier shutdown by the state last August. She'll have to wait him out.

Then she suddenly calls to us and we find her holding a large pelican, entangled in fishing line around its wings and its body, and with five hooks deeply embedded, including one in its foot and another that has left a large hole in the bird's throat.

She says this is actually pretty typical of what they find.

"Multiple hooks. Lots of line. They don't just have one person's line, but multiple hooks and line from various experiences being caught."

Local fisherman Edward Chaney of Wimauma comes to the pier two or three times a month. He says he has hooked and saved pelicans that got hooked on his line and he knows how to do it.

"It's part of fishing...of course you don't want pelicans, you don't want dolphins and all of this, but this is their world. We're here just a little bit of time to have fun," Chaney said.

Vreeland says their education campaign is making a difference, but she has encountered fishermen that consider pelicans and other birds to be a nuisance. This past winter she actually saw a deliberate case of abuse.

"He flew him out of the water still attached to his line and slammed him on the concrete. Then he went over and ripped his hook out...and the whole time I was watching from the end of the pier...and running with my hoop net to help."

Vreeland says bait shops on both skyway fishing piers have hoop nets to help catch a bird if it's hooked. She says fishermen can also carefully use their cast nets.

"A lot of the fishermen out here have a cast net. Some of them aren't aware they can actually throw this over the bird to help catch them, bring them up and remove the hooks."

She says the worst thing you can do is cut the line.

"Cutting the line is a death sentence. We find them all the time, hanging upside down. Dead. Some of them are still alive because the line gets stuck in the trees and they can't go anywhere so they're just left there to starve and die."

As for the injured pelican they found today. Despite five hooks, her prognosis is pretty good.

Vreeland says she'll need some rehab back at the sanctuary, but her chances of recovering and being released are pretty good.

"When you find birds like this out here that would have expired without you coming out and taking a look...this is what it's all about."

To contact Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary's rescue hotline, call (727) 391-6211 or go to www.seabirdsanctuary.com