SEBASTIAN — All the elements that make a successful event were firmly in place March 15 for the 22nd Annual Pelican Island Wildlife Festival – a sunny blue “Chamber of Commerce Day” with a great variety of food vendors and area artists.
Numerous organizations representing virtually every aspect of North County’s wildlife were also on hand to discuss nature topics with an enthusiastic, multi-generational crowd that filled Riverview Park all through the day.
Master of Ceremonies for the 111th birthday celebration of the Pelican Island Wildlife Refuge was the indefatigable U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt himself, who, in 1903, established Pelican Island as the first national wildlife refuge and appointed Sebastian’s own Paul Kroegel as the first refuge manager. Roosevelt was impeccably channeled by Joe Wiegand.
Treasure Coast Wildlife Center Education Director Tim Brown enthralled the crowd as he showed rescued birds of prey that call the center home.
A red-tailed hawk named Al-i’i (Ah-lee-ee) sat politely on the thickly gloved arm of center volunteer Ruth Neese. Al-i’i, a permanent center resident, has a broken wing, and a blinded right eye.
Hawks, Brown explained, have “incredible distance vision. She could see a bacon double cheeseburger a mile away.”
The center also brought owls and an American Eagle as well as a touch tank containing various crustaceans, which was surrounded by clusters of children all day.
The Florida Bat Conservancy tent was a crowd-pleaser, as Shari Bissett-Clark held a teeny fluffball in her hand, dispelling bat myths as the little bat shivered and wiggled its impossibly tiny toes, five per foot.
Bats shiver to raise their body temperature, she explained, adding that the “winged” mammals are clean, and don’t carry ticks, fleas or rabies as many believe.
They, helpfully, eat their weight in insects every day, and – baby bats don’t know how to fly unless their moms teach them.
Vero Beach Animal Control Officer Bruce Dangerfield shared his Florida reptile knowledge and brought several snakes to show the fascinated, if cautious, crowd.
Keep Indian River Beautiful, the Florida Park Service, the Friends of St. Sebastian River, the Environmental Learning Center, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Humane Society were among groups represented.
There were kayak and pontoon boat tours and an early-morning birding tour.
The Sebastian Public Works Department provided information on the kinds of illicit discharge that should never be allowed in the drainage or ground water system.
