Fw: Oil Spill Alert: Help Guide Clean Up Volunteers to Protect Birds

From: DRAPER, Eric
 
Oil Spill Alert: Help Guide Clean Up Volunteers to Protect Birds
 
Dear friends,
 
First let me thank everyone who has forwarded Safe Tips for Cleaning Litter off Beaches.  We have had numerous press responses and the word is getting out to leaders of volunteer efforts to clean up our beaches. 
 
If you have experience as a beach bird steward, we need your help. We just heard from the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program, at www.mobilebaynep.com, that they could use volunteers to help with beach debris cleanup.
 
Their clean up is scheduled for today at 3 p.m. Central Time. 
 
The Estuary Program particularly wants Audubon volunteers who can help guide other clean up volunteers to avoid impacting shorebirds and shorebird habitats.

We are advised that the volunteers have our guidance but may not follow it to the letter.
 
This is not oil spill clean up and you are not required to have Hazardous Materials Training. 
 
If you are experienced, live within range, and can help, please report to one of the command post locations at 3 p.m. in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
 
Dolphin Island - Cadillac Square ½ mile east of water tower
 
Fire Station #1 near mile marker 12 west of entrance Bonsecsor
http://www.fws.gov/bonsecour/directions.html NWF on Highway 180. http://www.fws.gov/bonsecour/directions.html
 
Gulf Shores Public Beach Parking Lot on west side of lot
 
Cotton Bayou Public Beach 1/8 mile east of intersection of highway 182 and 161
 
We realize this is short notice but we just heard from estuary staff members, who were responding to our guidance about avoiding impacts to beach nesting birds.
 
If you do decide to participate in the debris clean up, please take your camera along and share your images and observations with us by sending them to flconservation@audubon.org
 
For your information, please follow these approaches and urge other volunteers to follow these tips:
 
Safe Tips for Cleaning Litter off Beaches:
 
For those who want to clean litter from the beaches in anticipation of oil coming ashore, Audubon recommends the following:
 
Use approved access points and avoid walking or hiking through marshes or seagrass beds.
 
Stay below the tidal line.
 
Leave natural debris in place because it provides nesting benefits to shorebirds and other wildlife.
 
Only remove man-made litter.
 
Do not place litter in the dunes or above the high water line.
 
Avoid use equipment such as rakes, shovels or tractors.
 
Do not bring ATVs or other motorized vehicles onto the beach.
 
Do not bring dogs onto the beach (dogs are a primary source of beach bird disturbance and mortality.) 
 
Thank You
 
Eric Draper, Executive Director
Audubon of Florida - edraper@audubon.org