Book Aids Campaign To Protect Ospreys

A new children's book, based on the work of an Annapolis-based biologist, is aiming to prevent a sad ritual of spring around the Chesapeake Bay: ospreys becoming dangerously entangled in fishing line and other trash.

The large brown-and-white birds that feed almost exclusively on fish are beginning their spring migration back from Central and South America. Every year, starting around St. Patrick's Day, the ospreys return to rebuild the nests they left in trees and on channel markers and light poles near the water.

In doing so, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Peter McGowan said, the birds unwittingly put themselves in danger. They pick up discarded fishing line, plastic bags, ribbons attached to deflated balloons, and even such things as underwear, and use them to line their nests.

In some cases, McGowan said, the birds can become so entangled in this man-made detritus that they suffer serious injuries. Sometimes, the birds die.

The only thing they've got to untangle themselves is their beaks, McGowan said. "And it's usually not that effective."

So McGowan has posted signs and distributed thousands of fliers urging anglers not to discard fishing line in the water or on the shore.

Now, a local children's book author is spreading the message, too.

Jennifer Keats Curtis, who lives in Arnold, has written two previous books, including one about a young girl raising diamondback terrapins. Two years ago, she decided to write about ospreys, and she spent a day with McGowan, watching him scour the nests for trash.

"These birds are so magnificent, but seeing that stuff in the nest" was difficult, she said. "Knowing that people had done that, it was tough."

So she had a subject, but not a story. Then, Curtis said, she was driving across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and she spotted a blue plastic bag flapping from an osprey nest near the Anne Arundel shore. That would be her narrative: a little boy who spotted that nest and wanted to help the birds that lived there.

The result was "Osprey Adventure," a book released this year by Tidewater Publishers. On Monday, Curtis read from the book to students at Fort Smallwood Elementary School in Pasadena, describing how the boy -- named Pete, after McGowan -- and his biologist father cut an osprey chick loose from a tangle of fishing line.

Afterward, she showed the children a stuffed osprey, with its feet caught in a mass of line and ribbons. She urged them to take fishing line home and pick up plastic bags from the ground.

The message seemed to sink in.

"Bags and string and balloon ribbons are bad for osprey," said second-grader Noah Page, 8. He said he would follow Curtis's instructions: "If I have extra line, I'll put it in my pocket."

The area around the bay has an especially heavy concentration of ospreys. They have made an astonishing rebound from low population levels several decades ago, in part because of the ban on the once widely used pesticide DDT.

In recent years, however, the birds have been vulnerable to a different man-made problem. One of the most public cases came in 2006, when a bird nesting on a light tower at Broadneck High School in Severna Park had to be rescued by firefighters after it was caught in rope and silt fencing and left hanging upside down. While the bird was being rescued, it was so badly hurt that it had to be euthanized, according to news reports at the time.

McGowan said scientists are trying to learn more about why ospreys choose certain items to bring to the nest. In some cases, he said, they probably gather it for cushioning.

Some scientists think the brightly colored items are retrieved by male ospreys to appease their mates when a fishing expedition comes up empty.

"He comes back with a little trinket to show his apology," McGowan said.

McGowan said he thinks that Curtis's book might make a difference. He also said he was happy to have a namesake in fiction.

"I'm pretty flattered about that," he said.

For more information about the book, and about what you can do to help ospreys, visithttp://www.ospreybook.com.