Osprey Tragedy Highlights Trash Problem On Local Beach, Resident Says

SOUTHOLD, NY — It was a sight one resident says no child should ever have to see: A strangled baby osprey, hanging from its nest at Cedar Beach in Southold.

Laura Helf, who lives on the North Fork, says she enjoys walking at Cedar Beach County Park in Southold, which is filled with wildlife.

However, the beach, she said, has become a popular place for many who fish and leave litter behind. "People come by the carloads, hang out for the day and leave a horrible mess," she said.

Helf said when she pulled up, she looked at the osprey nest and couldn't, at first, tell what was hanging from above.

"It was one of the babies," she said.

Apparently, a fisherman left a broken pole, and the osprey may have thought it was a stick, bringing it to the nest, where a baby osprey was strangled.

The nest still holds two baby osprey and their parents, she said, but there was fishing line left in the nest.

After she saw the baby hanging suspended, Helf said she was worried children might see the heartbreaking sight and be traumatized.

The issue spotlights the litter problem on local beaches, Helf said.

"Please, take your garbage with you," she implored. "Don't leave it on the beach. This is an example of what happens when you are too lazy to clean up after yourself. For those of you who live locally, this is Cedar Beach. The garbage that is being left on this beach this year is disgusting. It's the worse I have ever seen it."

She added, "We have beautiful beaches on the North Fork. They are being destroyed. I have never seen Cedar Beach like it is this year; the garbage is horrible. I was there after Memorial Day and counted more than 100 beer cans. There's food, food wrappers, diapers, broken glass, hypodermic needles and now a broken fishing rod. An osprey will mistake that for a stick and collect it for nesting."

Had the owner of the rod just put it in the car, the baby osprey would not have been strangled, she said.

"Watching the mother circling the nest looking at her dead baby was truly a sad sight. If people aren't going to clean up after themselves, they shouldn't be allowed to use the beaches," Helf said.

Warning: Photo below might upset some readers.

Nick Gibbons, environmental analyst for the Suffolk County Parks Department, said he responded to Cedar Beach Friday after calls and social media posts from the public alerted him to the situation.

"By the time we got there, the bird had fallen down," he said, adding that the bird was removed from the site.

There was no remaining fishing line in the osprey nest, Gibbons said.

Gibbons said the county facility is a "carry in, carry out" park. The park, he said, is "one of the county's most remote parks, with no staff, rest rooms, or infrastructure," he said. "We do have a litter problem on the beach."

But, Gibbons said, the osprey's death was not likely directly related to litter.

Usually, he said, entanglement is related to an adult osprey who brought back debris for the nest they are building. Or, Gibbons added, in the process of retrieving a fish, often, a monofilament, or thin plastic, line has been used, with a steel leader and lure attached. In the case of the osprey at Cedar Beach, the steel leader, which is impossible to break without a wire cutter, exacerbated the situation when the osprey became entangled, Gibbons said.

"Either the situation was made worse by the stress of the bird frantically trying to take it off, or entanglement, or both, caused the osprey to die," he said.

Gibbons said he had been hoping for a better outcome, such as rescuing the injured osprey and taking it to a wildlife rehabilitation center.

As for the litter problem on the beach, Gibbons said even education and raising awareness "isn't going to really change the behavior of some people."

With the nearest staff 30 minutes away at Indian Island in Riverhead, he said, it's impossible to monitor the litter issue. Even a trash can would be filled in a day, and, with no staff to empty it daily, the trash would just scatter due to raccoons, he said.

Those who use the beach should take their litter with them when they leave, Gibbons said. "I don't think anyone needs a sign to tell them you can't just throw trash on the ground."

Patch osprey photos courtesy of Laura Helf.

Video by Lisa Finn.