June 13, 1985 - Local Osprey a Victim of ManPage 16A The Suffolk Times June 13,1985
Local Osprey a Victim of Man
By PAUL STOUTENBURGH
Most of us don't realize the problems
wildlife faces. I guess the best word to
cover the whole gamut of events that
wildlife faces is survival. That's exactly
what most of their life is made up of-,
storms and torrential downpours on
nesting birds, predators of all sorts al-
ways looking for that ever - needed meal,
the same problems man has of disease
and sickness, the hot and cold and, of
course, the continued problems dealt to
it by modern man.
One merely has to look closely at our
highways to see the destruction to
wildlife that shows itself here each day.
Then there's the encroachment on the
land itself. Whether it's development as
we think of it or the devastating
changes in habitat that are taking place
worldwide -- all have their effect.
Couple these with a thousand of less -ob-
vious hazards wildlife faces and we can
start to see why our birds, plants and
animals are having such a difficult time
today.
Typical of these manmade problems
was a telephone call I had today con-
cerning an osprey in trouble. Evidently
what happened was that the osprey,
which builds a huge nest of materials
from far and wide, had chosen the
wrong building material. Ospreys will
use anything from cornstalks to limbs
of trees, seaweed, pieces of plastic, even
an old sneaker -- just about anything
to build his bulky nest. He is not a buil-
der of just one material.
This particular bird had picked up a
stick from along the shoreline that had
monofilament fishing line tangled
Focus on
Nature
around it. Probably what happened was
that some fishermen in a rage of anger,
when his reel got tangled, cut loose the
"bird's nest" that had built up in the
reel and tossed it. It then somehow got
entangled in the stick.
Most of us don't do things deliberately
to endanger wildlife, but many of the
things we do indirectly down the line
carry with them devastating effects.
Doing Without Thinking
It's like so many things we do in
today's modern world. We throw away
an old can of pesticide and it travels
with our garbage to the landfill where
it percolates into our water supply. The
person who left the old beer bottle or
soda bottle on the beach never thought
that it might be broken and cause soine
innocent child a bad cut. Or how about
the boater who flips the top off a can
and throws it in the water, only to at-
tract a fish that ingests it and then dies.
None of us purposely does these things,
but many of our actions have an effect
on wildlife, and many times, on ourse-
lves.
This particular monofilament line I
spoke of eventually got caught on the
osprey, and when he flew away from
the nest it entangled one of the young
and dragged it with him. The results
were disastrous.
My son and 1 were alerted to the prob-
lem and immediately responded. A
Photo by Paul Stoutenburgh
OSPREY AND YOUNG -- Ospreys build their bulky nests with just about
anything they can find. Some monofilament fish line that had been
brought to a nest on a stick this year brought disaster to the family.
brave soul had cut the badly bruised
osprey free and it was lying on the
beach. A few feet away from the perch
where it had landed lay the dead young.
The parent bird was still alive, so it
was wrapped up carefully and taken to
our local wildlife veterinarian. Here it
was examined, given shots and placed
in a dark cage for recuperation.
What will happen, no one knows at
this time. Hopefully the bird will re-
cover.
I can remember another osprey in
Mattituck some years ago being downed
by a monofilament kite line. It was re-
scued, cut free and recuperated.
Somehow the story has to be told that
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we must become more and more aware
and responsible for what we do. We can
no longer live in our own world not
thinking of our neighbors, be they man
or beast. We have only one world that
we must all share. We must all strive
to make it a better and safer world.
There are going to be some hard deci-
sions ahead whether it be what we do
with our toxic wastes, what we do with
our valuable farmland, or what we do
to our wildlife. They are all connected.
It's a fool who, in this day and age,
only thinks of himself Each of us was
given a place in the sun and it is our
job to see that each creature -- man,
plant or animal -- has his chance. The
result would be a more perfect world.
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