By Founder and President Kurt Lieber
Editor's note: After you read this, be sure to check out the photo gallery with many excellent photos of beautiful birds our crew saw on this day in the Refuge.
A lot can change in a wetland over 2 months!
We did our last cleanup of the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge (SBNWR) in early December. In the interim we had heavier rain than normal which precluded us from doing a cleanup. Couple that with high tides and winds, and things changed drastically in the wetlands.
Seven ODA volunteers were eager to participate on Wednesday, February 25th: Dennis Arp, Dave and Jean Merrill, Kent Morris, Linda Nicholes and Lisa Taylor.
I got there the day before and took a look around the 960 acres of marsh, searching for specific areas where lots of trash may have accumulated. I didn’t have to go far. Just a few minutes into my drive inside the refuge, I saw an astonishing amount of trash washed up onto a road. Mind you, the road is probably 3 feet higher than the water’s edge even at a high tide.
We’ve been cleaning SBNWR for several years now and I had never seen this much trash. When I asked the refuge biologist, Chloe, what she thought, she said there had been really strong winds that picked the stuff up and threw it all over the high ground.
It was an absolute mess.
What made it more distressing is that this is the time of year when several different species of birds are migrating through the area on their way to warmer climates and their breeding grounds. There are well over 200 bird species that migrate through or stop at the SBNWR, including shorebirds, waterfowl, raptors, and other waterbirds. What if they see some of this trash and mistake it for food? Sadly, it happens all the time, especially with Styrofoam.
Birds like the snowy plover, black-necked stilts, American avocet, and wigeons all utilize this area, but only for about 2 months. We needed to get this place as clean as we could, pronto.
You’ll see my photos. All those birds I listed are already present here in the Refuge.
We got to work by 9:15am and spent the next two-and-a-half hours picking all manner of human detritus. It was the usual stuff, food wrappers, pieces of Styrofoam, bottle caps, plastic bottles of every shape and size…
We even found a large piece of luggage, a golf bag, several backpacks, and 2 mattresses. Regarding the latter, we could only get one out of there due to me getting stuck in the mud up to my knees when I tried to walk the 50 feet into the wetlands from the road.
As time ran out we saw that we had made a huge difference in the area we were able to cover, but there was more than twice that amount that we had to leave behind.
We did manage to get about 625 pounds out of there.
It was a very rewarding day knowing that those birds wouldn’t have to contend with all that trash, and it’s always great spending time with people who care enough about the environment to give up half their day to make a difference.
Thanks Dennis, Dave, Jean, Kent, Linda and Lisa! Sea you next month!!
Wouldn’t you love to be part of this? We would love to have you join us so we can remove all the trash we encounter at each cleanup. Please shoot us an email and we’ll let you know when the next opportunity arises!
