Wimauma woman ready to help save birds from oil spill

Lee Fox remembers as a little girl when her grandmother affixed a toothpick to the fractured leg of a sparrow and nursed it back to health.

"She kept it in her house, fed it, took care of it,'' Fox said.

After it was rehabilitated and released, it always came back to the same windowsill of their house in New Jersey.

For years, Fox has been working with sick and injured birds just like her grandmother did.

In August 1993, during the oil spill in Tampa Bay after a collision in the shipping channel, she treated 380 birds, helping to rehabilitate 317 for release back into the wild.

Now she has her sights set on the massive oil spill which grows daily in the Gulf of Mexico. She's ready to drive wherever she is needed - Louisiana, Mississippi, North Florida - to help.

"I am hoping for the same results up there,'' said Fox, whose rescue group is called Save Our Seabirds, formerly based in Tierra Verde in southern Pinellas County. "But this spill is going to be 100 times worse. The terrain is going to be a lot different than we had here.''

Fox, who lives in Wimauma but whose group is now based in Sarasota, said it will be important to get local volunteers to help wherever she ends up.

"They are the key to knowing the places where these birds hide,'' Fox said. "They know where the rookeries are.''

Fox is most concerned with diving birds such as pelicans and cormorants. She's also worried about herons, egrets, sandpipers and other varieties.

"Snowy egrets are very sensitive,'' she said. "They can die right in your hands.''

Another complicating factor is that this is also baby bird season, according to Fox.

"A lot of birds are coming off nests and learning how to feed,'' she said. "Their learning curve is going to be ruined.''

Fox has spent the last couple of days getting ready to hit the road. She has packed hoses, tubs, nets, cleaning supplies and lots of other items she and her helpers will need to help birds who come across the oil.

Birds who already are sick or injured will suffer the most. "In the first couple of days, you get a lot of those,'' she said. "Those are the ones who are more likely to die.''

When birds are found with oil on them, the most important thing is to get them stabilized. Workers focus on feeding them, and getting oil off their bodies so that when they preen they are not ingesting more oil, Fox said.

Workers have to build pens for the birds, and pools for them to swim in - all with the goal of getting them healthy enough to release back into the wild.

"We may have to transport them completely out of their area," Fox said. "Why would you want to release them out into that same area?''

For now, though, Fox is not fixated on the end result. She is trying to figure out where to go, when she will go, when the call will come from BP PLC, the company that operated the rig that exploded and sank.

"We're still on standby,'' she said. "All we have to do is turn our keys and leave.''