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Finding mommy's little scavenger

By CRAIG PITTMAN
Published February 8, 2007

Joyce Newman misses her vulture.

She adopted it seven years ago, agreeing to pay $300 a year for its care. Usually she sent more, up to $1,000.

Initially the staff of the Pelican Man's Bird Sanctuary in Sarasota tried to steer her toward something smaller, maybe a blue jay.

Newman, a New Yorker in her 60s, said no way to the jay. "For $300 a year," she told them, "I want the biggest bleeping bird you got."

Turkey vultures are not elegant like great blue herons or colorful like roseate spoonbills. They have knobby red heads, beady eyes, pointy yellow beaks. They don't sing - they just grunt or hiss.

And they eat roadkill. That's risky. Newman's vulture had been hit by a car. Its left wing didn't heal, so it lived at the sanctuary.

Newman was impressed by the vulture's resilience, so "we named him Paulie, after my mother Paula, because she was a tough old bird."

Newman and her husband proudly hung pictures of Paulie in their New York apartment and their Longboat Key condominium. Six or seven times a year, they would visit. Walking toward the cage, Newman would call out, "Paulie! It's Mommy!"

But in December, after 25 years of saving injured wildlife, the Pelican Man's Bird Sanctuary shut down. And nobody could say what happened to Paulie.

* * *

The Pelican Man was Dale Shields, a former car salesman from Michigan. One day while fishing in Sarasota, he saw a pelican that looked nearly dead. He took it home, named it George and nursed it back to health in his bathtub.

Then Shields suffered a heart attack. He swore that if he survived, he would devote his life to helping injured animals. He soon became a familiar figure in Sarasota, cultivating an image as a real Dr. Doolittle.

In 1988 he persuaded Sarasota to lease him 2 acres of waterfront for $1. Soon he was running one of the state's largest wildlife rehab operations, with a hospital, a gift shop, a boat, two trucks and a paid staff of 23 - at a cost of $1-million a year.

One big expense was the care for permanent residents like Paulie. The sanctuary kept far more birds than it could easily afford, president Judy Ragona said.

So the sanctuary offered to let supporters like the Newmans adopt a bird "for life." They even got to meet Shields, who "knew the personal history of each bird," Newman said.

Shields became an icon, profiled in Parade and named a Point of Light by former President George Bush, but he never planned for the future. As fast as money came in, "we spent it," Ragona said.

In 2003, Shields had another heart attack, a fatal one. Without him, the sanctuary struggled. There were claims that animals were mistreated. The state briefly shut down the wildlife hospital.

When the sanctuary begged for emergency donations in the fall, Sarasota Herald-Tribune columnist Tom Lyons recounted its troubled history, including rumors that Shields skimmed contributions to cover his bets at the dog track. Lyons wrote that maybe animal lovers "will come to their senses ... and put their checkbooks away."

On Dec. 13, the place closed.

* * *

When Newman last saw Paulie in July, everything seemed fine. She was stunned to learn about the closing. She phoned about Paulie but got no answers.

Newman coaches celebrities on dealing with the media. Her clients have included Fabio and Mr. T. So to find Paulie, she turned to the media, contacting the St. Petersburg Times. But tracking down one bird out of the Pelican Man's flock was no easy task.

All the birds were moved, Ragona told the Times, but she didn't know where Paulie had gone. Some went to Busch Gardens - but no vultures. A sanctuary in Jupiter took 20 more - but no vultures.

Finally, a break: A St. Petersburg veterinarian, Martha Keller, helped ready the birds for shipment. In the rush, she said, most of the vultures went to the Brevard Zoo in Melbourne.

Sure enough, Paulie was picked up Jan. 12, said zoo spokeswoman Andrea Hill. He'll be part of a new vulture exhibit opening in March.

Among the 300,000 people expected to visit will be the Newmans - even though it will mean driving three hours to say, "Paulie! It's Mommy!"

Maybe, Newman said, they can readopt him.

Times researchers Caryn Baird and Angie Drobnic Holan contributed to this report. Craig Pittman can be reached at craig@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8530.

Encounters

About the series

Encounters is dedicated to small but meaningful stories. Sometimes they will play out far from the tumult of the daily news; sometimes they may be part of the news. To comment or suggest an idea for a story, please contact editor Mike Wilson at mike@sptimes.com or (727) 892-2924.

[Last modified February 8, 2007, 00:11:12]