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SOS to the rescue

One woman is on a mission to save and rehabilitate injured seabirds, returning them to the wild if they can handle it.

By MEGAN VOELLER, Times Correspondent
Published October 10, 2007

An injured green heron in the hands of Lee Fox who runs Save Our Seabirds.
	[Skip O'Rourke | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Skip O'Rourke | Times] Lee Fox treats a green heron that was hit by a car. Fox now runs Save Our Seabirds in Wimauma, but used to work out of Tierra Verde.

Brutus doesn't like competition for his mother's attention.

When others occupy her, the 1-year-old is apt to throw temper tantrums, and bite toes.

The black vulture's attachment to the person he recognizes as his mother is unnatural, says Lee Fox. Her Save Our Seabirds rehabilitation center in Wimauma is home for Brutus and about 60 other birds. To get the excited vulture to calm down, she soaks him with a hose. Afterward, he sulks in the corner.

Like 95 percent of the sanctuary's avian residents, Brutus' life has been changed forever by human contact. For some, including Brutus, good-intentioned mistakes such as feeding have left them incapable of fending for themselves. Other birds bear injuries caused by discarded fishing line or plastic six-pack rings. Some of them were bought as pets and later abandoned.

Since 1990, Fox has cared for a constantly changing cast of cormorants, pelicans, egrets, and others, first in her home in Tierra Verde in Pinellas County and now on their 72-acre Wimauma farm. She rehabilitates the birds that can recover and gives a permanent home to those that can't.

Fox and her husband moved to Wimauma in 2004, after living in Tierra Verde for 16 years. There, people knew that she kept a lot of birds, but nobody complained. Things changed when a neighbor decided to sell her house. Once a complaint was made, county officials had no choice but to tell her the birds had to go, she said.

Add in farm animals

So Fox and her husband, Paul, a builder, moved to a piece of property they originally bought to raise trees for their son's landscaping business. The property provides more than enough room for everyone. Between large cages of injured and orphaned birds, Paul Fox's sheep, goats and free-range chickens wander. A pasture houses a flock of injured sandhill cranes and an emu police found running down a highway.

A typical day for Lee Fox starts at 4 a.m., when she prepares food for the injured birds and their pets. She works 11 hours a day, seven days a week with help from one volunteer. And there's the bills: It costs about $28,000 a year to care for the 500 or so birds that pass through the sanctuary. Donors cover about two-thirds. The rest comes from Fox's pocket.

The new site has enabled Save Our Seabirds to expand. Last year, the Foxes built a 30-foot-high enclosed structure called a mew. It simulates a natural habitat: Birds of prey perch at tree height and swoop down to grab live food. Tampa Electric donated labor and heavy machinery to sink posts into the mew's foundation. Members of musician Jimmy Buffett's fan club, the Parrotheads, also pitched in.

The addition has other bird rehab centers calling Fox with birds of prey, she said. The mew's recent arrivals includeseven orphaned baby barn owls. With the help of two surrogate parents that are permanent sanctuary residents, Fox was able to return them to the wild.

Next to the mew, a cluster of large cages houses an avian menagerie. In one, an egret flecked with bright pink spots slowly recovers from being doused with paint. Others, like a trio of fluffy kestrels, were found and raised by someone who turned them into docile pets, she said.

Not knowing what to do brings dire consequences for the birds, Fox warns. A former assistant doted on Brutus when he arrived injured. She gave him snacks and touched him. The bird began to identify with human beings instead of his own kind, Fox said.

"They associate you as their parent. Even though I put him with another vulture to watch how they eat and so forth, she would go in the cage and talk to him. The result [is] he thinks he's a puppy dog," she said.

To educate the public about how to deal with seabirds, Fox has placed signs throughout Pinellas and Hillsborough counties.

Bound for Sarasota?

Fox also has her eye on an even bigger operation. She's the only remaining applicant to run the shuttered Pelican Man Bird Sanctuary in Sarasota. If city officials approve, Fox and a full-time employee could care for up to 5,000 birds a year. Most birds would be moved from Wimauma, though Fox said she'll continue to live there and take in injured birds on an emergency basis.

The Sarasota facility, she said, is exciting because it offers chances to educate about the dangers of discarded fishing line and other issues seabirds face.

"When you do this on a daily basis, when you see all the injuries and what's causing it, how can you not share that information with the public?" Fox asks.

A version of this story appears in some regional editions of the Times.

FAST FACTS

Don't feed wildlife

When encountering a wild bird, do not feed it. When adult pelicans, for example, are fed by humans, they will also bring their offspring, creating a generation that is unable to survive in the wild. Don't discard fishing line, plastic bags or any other trash. If you find a bird tangled in fishing line, do not simply unwrap it and let it go. Take it to a vet. The weakened bird is likely to starve if left alone.

Source: Save Our Seabirds

[Last modified October 9, 2007, 22:10:50]