Full-time rescue volunteer Charlie Mason answers a rescue call.

Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary

The name is a little misleading. While seabirds abound in the hospital and among the educational birds, the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary in Indian Shores (Tampa/St. Petersburg area) treats all native birds, from mourning doves to the occasional magnificent frigate bird. During peak times the small hospital facilities are stretched; 10,056 birds (not including the Lake Apopka victims) passed through here in 1999, 1520 in June. Although mourning doves generally top the list as the most-admitted species, in 1999 the Eastern brown pelican edged out the doves with 1273 admissions.

As a new volunteer beginning last November, I was simultaneously impressed and dismayed by the amount of work and number of animals cared for in this facility. During the peak season, when the number of volunteers drastically increases, the birds are comfortably housed but the humans seem to be in each other's way all the time. Careful planning is necessary to make sure time and space are optimally used. More than once since I've been there, the volunteer's restroom has been pressed into service for a larger animal such as an adult sandhill crane or white pelican. But construction of a new hospital addition is underway. With continued fortune, it will be ready for occupancy by mid-March.

In addition to the indoor hospital facilities, there are four songbird flight pens, a dove flight pen, and a number of outdoor longer-term convalescent facilities. All are secluded from the public areas where educational birds are maintained under federal and state permits.

The sanctuary is located on one of the prettiest stretches of beach in the area. One of the true highs I get volunteering there is being able to carry a recovered pelican out to that beach and watch it join its peers. Twice in the last year I have actually remembered to take a quick break and walk out on the beach to enjoy the birds as they were meant to be!

Although zoologist Ralph Heath began the Sanctuary in 1971, he is now active primarily in the administrative end. Twelve to fourteen full and part time staff members, as well as volunteers, provide daily care for the rehab and permanent birds. For the past 18 years, day to day operation of the hospital has been in the hands of its supervisor, wildlife biologist Barbara Suto.

Getting a short interview with Barb for this article was no mean task. If she is not examining new arrivals, completing federal paperwork, or training a staff member or volunteer, she is tied up with maintaining the health and well being of the permanent residents. She also provides technical advice as requested to Wildlife Rescue of the Florida Keys, now under the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary umbrella.

The Sanctuary has had a brown pelican breeding program since 1975. Between baby season and the winter peak of adult injured birds, Barbara examines all the resident pelicans and cormorants to determine whether they are in breeding condition and to make any adjustments to their dietary regimen. At the last examination, one resident male pelican was found to still be successfully siring young at the ripe old age of 27!

Barbara treats the breeding group of pelicans as close to a natural rookery as possible, allowing nature to take its course with minimal intervention. The staff keeps detailed records on the results. The nesting birds are also useful when the rare baby pelican is received -- babies under five weeks old are willingly fostered by a nesting pair, while those over five weeks old are placed under the tutelage of Frankie, the surrogate parent who serves as role model.

Unlike many who became involved in wildlife rehabilitation through a single animal that crossed their paths, Barbara seems to have been going in this direction from the beginning, earning her BS in wildlife biology at Ohio State University. In her senior year she served an internship at a Ohio rehabilitation center, and attended her first NWRA conference long before going to work at the Seabird Sanctuary. Eight months after her December 1981 graduation, she was in Florida visiting her grandfather, who was having surgery. She heard about a vacancy at the Seabird Sanctuary. Like any good recent college graduate she had resumes with her, and arranged for an interview and has been there ever since

Staff and volunteers at the Sanctuary conduct the annual inventory of resident brown pelicans to ensure they are in optimal condition for breeding.

In 1987 Barb was on the host committee for the NWRA conference when it was held in Clearwater. She became the symposium coordinator in 1989 and was elected to the Board of Directors in1990 -- jobs she still holds. Although her educational background provided the scientific foundation, she credits the NWRA, the conference proceedings and journals, and other reference materials for her growth and knowledge expansion as a rehabilitator. She observes that if she had known the direction her career would take she would have taken more nutrition courses, and that when she did learn to analyze food content in her livestock classes she had no idea how she would eventually apply that knowledge!

One of her interests and ongoing pursuits is the study of homeopathy. She believes there is a place for all treatments -- antibiotics, surgery, and homeopathy -- and discusses the use of homeopathy with the Sanctuary vets before embarking on its use. Another firmly held belief is in the value of fluid therapy in the first few critical hours a bird is in care. In fact, Barbara places an in-dwelling catheter in the vein of larger birds so that she will not have to needle stick the birds each time she administers fluids.

In January 1999 the Sanctuary became a key player in an environmental tragedy as a thousand wading birds and other fish-eating birds fell ill of pesticide-related poisoning. Organochlorine pesticides were the culprits, and the situation was a wetlands restoration project on 13,000 acres around Lake Apopka. Birds were literally falling out of the sky; over 1000 were found dead. The Florida Audubon Society Bird of Prey Center in Maitland rescued those 150 that were found alive. A Sanctuary volunteer, Dave Mason, drove to Lakeland daily to transport birds to the Sanctuary and to a temporary intensive care location that Barbara Suto set up in her home. Ultimately only a handful of the birds were saved due to the powerful toxins, in spite of heroic efforts. (Despite stories subsequently floated in the press that the cause of the die-off was Newcastle's Disease, Barbara and others who worked with these birds remain firmly convinced that organochlorine pesticides were the problem.  Both the symptoms and official response attest to this.)

I did finally get a few minutes to talk to Barbara about her motivation. After all, 18 years -- how can a person keep going in such a demanding field?  She attributes it in part to her respect and admiration for fellow staff members, volunteers, and vets -- all essential members of the team. But even more important, she feels that she has been given a gift to work with and be challenged to work with these amazing creatures, birds. Learning what they are really like, how they manage to survive, and what their lives are like fascinates her. There is always so much to learn, so many questions, and so few answers.

I have developed a great deal of respect for Barb's competence and caring for the birds in the year I've observed her. She pays attention to individuals -- even individual babies. More than once as a new arrival was placed in with other birds she took the time to instruct me on how it would behave and what to expect until it settled in. She has stopped short in front of a cage to explain why the perches are inappropriate and what should be in there instead (and sent one of us scurrying to correct the situation). Least tern babies, notoriously difficult to raise, do well under Barbara's care -- she takes the time necessary to get them to eat well, and ensures their environmental needs are met.