Wildlife rehabilitators near Astoria are trying to patch up two severely injured seabirds, the sole survivors of two recent attacks on the Long Beach Peninsula.
On July 23, a volunteer who scours the beach for birds spotted an older man and his wife in a green jeep plowing through flocks of Brown pelicans and gulls near the Ocean Park entrance. Seven gulls were killed and one survived though it’s not clear it will ever fly again.
On July 29, he found another gull in the same area with a fractured wing bone from a pellet shot.
Then on Monday near the Bolstad Avenue entrance to the beach, the volunteer discovered six dead gulls in a pile, with car tracks engraved on their bodies.
The birds are protected under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, making killing or harming them a crime. But every summer volunteers from the Wildlife Center of the North Coast near Astoria recovers birds injured by drivers on Long Beach, where the speed limit is 25 mph.
“People run them over all the time,” said Sharnelle Fee, director of the Wildlife Center of the North Coast where the survivors are recovering. “If you’re exceeding 25 mph the birds can’t get out of the way.”
California and Heermann’s gulls were hit in both incidences, including young birds hatched in the spring that were on their first migration north to learn foraging and survival skills on the beach. The bird that was shot was a Thayer’s gull. It has two fractures and its wing is wrapped. Fee said it may fly some day.
No suspects have been identified, Fee said, even though the first instance happened around mid-day during a busy sand castle event on the beach.
“There were a bazillion people out there,” she said. “It’s bizarre that no one confronted them.”
The wildlife center is offering a $500 reward for any information about the bird strikes that leads to an arrest. Call Sgt. Dan Chadwick of Washington state Fish and Wildlife enforcement at 360-581-3337.
I'm getting madder by the day!!
The Oregonian
