Results of a Thirty-Minute Walk

We’ve taken to carrying plastic bags with us for walks on the beach, to have something to put all the trash in.  The stuff pictured is what wouldn’t fit in the bags on one thirty-minute walk.

Some days are worse than others.  We find a lot of cruise ship debris, like balloons, entangled in ribbon, everyday stuff like water and soda bottles, plastic bait bags, styrofoam cups and cooler pieces, syringes, condoms, beer cans, and lots of fishing line.  There are garbage and recycle bins at the dune walkovers every hundred yards or so, but they are rarely used, and we have seen other beach walkers step over and around stuff time and again.  It’s like they literally don’t see it.  There’s certainly no ownership.  I don’t get it.

And what’s with feeding seagulls on the beach? It isn’t kind, and it isn’t cute.  It’s some kind of weird character flaw.  These are the same folks who feed bears and bison out west. Unfortunately, a seagull can’t take your head off, so it’s not of equal immediate danger. Don’t do it; don’t teach your kids and grandkids to do it.  Seagulls can fend for themselves. Just go to any Florida landfill; you’ll see what I mean.

But here’s my dilemma, and you tell me if it’s hypocritical. I want a personal pelican.  I think I have from childhood on, but certainly since seeing one in some movie a long time ago, I can’t remember, some cornball 60s thing, maybe “Blue Hawaii.” Anyway there was this pelican hanging around the beach house, or dock, like he lived there, real tame and all. He would waddle around and squawk for fish, and somebody would toss him one. Now I don’t think I’ve ever heard a pelican utter a sound, let alone a squawk, but that’s beside the point.  It would be very cool to have a personal pelican waddling around on the deck here, or standing with his big beak down and his eyes rolled up at you like they do when you’re surf fishing.  That’s really where I got the idea, and is the heart of my dilemma.  See, I know I could get one to live up here at the house, but that would entail training it with a lot of finger mullet.  The mullet is not an issue.  I have a freezer full to use for bait, and I can always get more.  The issue is one of ethics, and whether I would be breaking my own prohibition against feeding sea birds.  On the surface they certainly seem the same, but underneath I see perhaps a subtle but distinct difference. Fundamental to this difference is a difference in intelligence.  Pelicans are much more intelligent than seagulls. This is manifested in a number of ways, none more obvious than a pelican’s frequently clownish behavior, indicative of a well-developed sense of humor, and that indicative of intelligence. I believe pelicans are a link between birds and man. In observing pelicans all my life, I believe they want to mingle with us, as social equals, despite their near decimation by DDT.

A mullet here, a mullet there; he follows me up the path through the palmettos; we wait for a lull in the A1A traffic; and we’re home free. I would gorge him then, and satiated, he might lumber off, but he’d be back. He’d remember, and pretty soon, it wouldn’t be worth his while to be anywhere else.  I’d learn to play the ukulele for him. He might even convince his pals to cease and desist with the flyover poop splatters. You think about these things out here.

A Pelican