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Birds vs. bulldozers

By THERESA BLACKWELL
Published July 16, 2006

July 21, 1977

CLEARWATER - Two generations of endangered seabirds won a showdown with man this week, thanks to a college professor from Ohio.

The quiet drama unfolded on the northern tip of Sand Key, where an estimated 200 black skimmers and least terns have established a breeding ground.

Scraping out nests in the sand, the birds settled in to lay their speckled eggs and nurse their young on the gulf beach.

By the time G.C. de Roth ventured to the area Monday night, eggs rested in some nests and fuzzy newborn birds huddled in others. de Roth, an ecology professor at Defiance College in Ohio, is vacationing in Seminole and has photographed seabirds on Sand Key for years.

But Monday, de Roth found disaster bearing down on the nursery.

A brigade of Pinellas County workers armed with bulldozers was constructing a large sand dike on the fill area where the nesting grounds are located. The dike will hold spoil material dredged from the gulf.

de Roth saw wide swaths cut by the bulldozers near the nests and feared the machines eventually would rumble through the rookery, crushing unhatched eggs and infant birds.

So he launched a rescue mission. He called Butler Durham, president of the St. Petersburg chapter of the National Audubon Society. Durham in turn called Fred S. McLean, assistant county parks director, to alert him to the birds' plight.

Tuesday, McLean visited the site and ordered work halted near the nests until the breeding period is over - about three weeks.

Ralph Heath of the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary in Indian Shores said the county was lucky to head off the destruction because federal law prohibits harming the least terns and black skimmers.

de Roth worries that this week's victory is only a pause in the seabirds' losing battle for survival. "Their nesting grounds keep getting destroyed and the birds have to keep looking for new ones," he said.

JULY 14, 1921

Farmers, fruit growers flock to meeting

OLDSMAR - Nearly all of the farmers and fruit growers in the Oldsmar district attended the first weekly meeting in the offices of the Reolds Farms Company, and a large amount of valuable information was exchanged. A number of the growers have summer crops consisting of sweet potatoes and okra, while others are getting ready for fall plantings of strawberries, tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables. There will be more planting done in the Oldsmar district this fall than ever before.

The meetings will be held regularly on Monday nights throughout the year, and the subject for discussion every time will be the work the farmers are doing or preparing to do.

JULY 16, 1921

Residents glad to return to cool Florida

OLDSMAR - People returning to Oldsmar from their summer vacations in the north are unanimously reporting that Florida is a summer resort compared to many northern cities.

In Michigan, they have had a number of days when the thermometer went about 100 degrees, with many heat prostrations.

In Louisville, Ky., it was reported that men, women and dogs were dying from excessive heat. Peninsular Florida, where the breezes blow across from the Atlantic ocean to the Gulf of Mexico day and night, with the fishing, boating and bathing beaches handy, is as satisfactory in the summer as in the winter.

Theresa Blackwell compiles the history column. She can be reached at blackwell@sptimes.com or 727 445-4170.

[Last modified July 15, 2006, 22:26:25]