INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — For the past 50 years, the Pelican Island Audubon Society has been a leading force for local environmental protection and conservation efforts. But its roots effectively took hold more than a century ago.
It was through efforts by the Florida Audubon Society that President Theodore Roosevelt signed an executive order in 1903 establishing Pelican Island as the first National Wildlife Refuge in the nation. Almost six decades later, the Indian River Preservation League was formed to protect critical wetlands adjacent to the refuge; in 1964 it became the Pelican Island Audubon Society.
Today, adjacent to the Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area (ORCA), the organization’s newest fledgling is taking shape – Audubon House.
“It’s supposed to look like two birdhouses,” says Richard Baker, Ph.D., board president since 2003. He credits Richard Bialosky with the design concept, which features large round windows fronting each of two buildings connected by a breezeway. Bialosky is among many on the “Pro Bono Project Team” constructing Audubon House as a community effort.
“What we’ve been doing for the last 18 years is training people to look over this 440-acre preserve,” says Baker, referring to ORCA, a maritime hammock located along a pristine stretch of the Indian River Lagoon. “We want this to be a spot for eco-tourism. This is one of the nicest parks in Indian River County. It has almost every type of habitat in Florida right here.”
Among its varied habitats are scrubby pine flatwoods, fresh and saltwater coastal wetlands, palm hammock and xeric uplands. The area is also home to the University of Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory which sits next door to Audubon House.
ORCA was purchased by the county in stages, with the provision that it improve the property with picnic pavilions and trails, and Baker says they are essentially fulfilling that obligation for the county.
Audubon House is just a short distance away from the Oslo boat ramp, where the Audubon Society – supported by environmentalists, small-boat fishermen and other conservation agencies – is once again endeavoring to protect our endangered wetlands and waters from harmful dredging and development.
The Pelican Island Audubon Society (PIAS) has been the leading voice of opposition to County Commission efforts to spend more than a million in taxpayer dollars to expand and pave the boat ramp for large-boat traffic, in the process destroying one of the few areas of the lagoon where fragile sea grasses flourish.
Baker hopes the community will embrace the new Audubon House with the same enthusiasm as it did the Environmental Learning Center, which was the vision of the late Maggie Bowman during one of her terms as PIAS president.
“This could be, as far as I’m concerned, the ELC of the south,” says Baker. “We’re not going to be competing with the ELC. In fact, we hope to continue working with them. We collaborate to train their volunteers, and Indian River Land Trust folks are taking our classes as well.”
Of the roughly 9,000 acres owned by the county, some 4,000 is conservation land and the rest ranch land, and only one county employee oversees it all. With this expanded training space, PIAS will be able to augment county efforts by training volunteers to do things such as removing exotic plants, clearing trails and leading tours.
The Audubon House “birdhouse” on the left will house offices for staff and volunteers, while the multipurpose room on the right will be primarily used as classroom space. Plans call for picnic tables in the breezeway as well as public bathrooms.
Classes will continue to be administered in collaboration with the University of Florida, through UF class coordinator Janice Broda. “It’s a joint effort; they sold us the land. We own the building but they will use it,” says Baker, a UF Professor Emeritus.
“We’re going to have a native plant nursery in the back. We’re going to be growing native plants and teaching people about them. We’ll probably be selling some too. We’re encouraging people to beautify their yards with natives to help the lagoon by limiting fertilizers,” he adds.
“In my opinion, education is the most important thing we need to think about in the county, the nation and the world. Just speaking about changing the environment doesn’t do it. You need to educate folks. That’s critical, yet in Florida we’re vying for last place in the nation in terms of education.”
There will, of course, be classes for the ever growing number of birding enthusiasts, and perhaps even a live bird cam focused on nearby eagle or owl nests. Another possibility is the UF watering hole, where cameras have caught nighttime visitors such as coyotes, Florida panthers and raccoons.
“One of the interesting things we’re also working on with Grant Gilmore is to put microphones out in the lagoon to listen to the fish,” says Baker. “There are three or four species of game fish that make sounds to attract mates like birds do. Male birds sing, and fish do something similar.”
General Audubon meetings will continue to be held monthly in both the Vero Beach Community Center and the North County Library. All meetings include informative speakers and are open to the public.
PIAS has been honored with the Florida Audubon Best Chapter Award several times, including last year, and in 2011 Baker was honored with the National Audubon Society’s Charles H. Callison Volunteer Award.
Among other accomplishments, PIAS is recognized as having organized the nation’s first coastal cleanup, helped pass nighttime beach ordinances to protect sea turtles and led efforts to rewrite the county’s Tree Protection and Landscaping ordinances. They also facilitated bonds to purchase conservation lands, partnered to purchase scrub-jay habitat, initiated the Quality of Life Indicators project, and partnered with Sebastian Inlet State Park to develop a Basic Birding video.
Additional funding is needed for Audubon House, which they hope to complete by the end of this year. For more information, visit www.pelicanislandaudubon.org.