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Saving Special Places
Protect Florida's Beaches

Audubon of Florida Safe Tips for Cleaning Litter off Beaches

Royal Tern chick courtesy of Linda Martino

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.
• Don’t 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 sources of beach bird disturbance and mortality.)
• Respect posted areas and leave signs, posts and twine in place to protect beach nesting bird colonies.

Birders, your efforts can make an important contribution. Please help.

Least Tern chick courtesy of Linda Martino

We encourage birders along the Gulf coast to record their observations of birds submit this information to www.ebird.org, a real-time, online checklist program. This vital documentation of the location and abundance of birds will help us identify high priority areas for protection and restoration as the oil comes ashore. Documenting site use by birds as the situation evolves will also help Audubon and Cornell scientists assess the effects of this spill on Gulf coast habitat. This is critical to providing a sound foundation for restoration and long-term protection.

The eBird team is developing tools that will allow us to feed live data from birders into educational material on the spill.

Please Note: Be sure that your observation activities pose no danger to nesting birds and other wildlife, or to yourself. Please do not disturb birds or damage habitat when surveying birds. It is critical that birders stay out of nesting areas for plovers, shorebirds, terns, wading birds and other colonial nesters. Counting them from a distance can still provide valuable information on the importance of these sections of the gulf coast. And for your own protection, leave the area at once if you smell or see oil.

For the initiative protocol and directions on signing up for ebird, go to: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/survey-gulf-coast-birds.