Trash Talk! It's the 13th Annual Highway Cleanup

Help beautify FM 1389, the gateway to the Wetland Center. Fuel up with breakfast snacks and celebrate with a pizza party -- and leave with the good feeling that comes from community service. Please sign up so we'll know how many bags, grabbers and gloves to order. Oh, and pizzas too!

Date: Saturday, Feb. 28

Time: 8 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

Registration: Please register. Of course, there's never an admission fee for volunteers! Feel free to enjoy a wetland walk after the cleanup.

Master naturalists and other organizations: Volunteer hours available!

The Story Behind the Eagle Photo

On New Year’s Eve of 2024, the male eagle of our wetland breeding pair brought a balloon with string attached into the nest. By Jan. 2, the balloon was hanging outside the nest, thanks to the wind, but the plastic string remained caught in the nest. Thankfully, a wind gust dislodged the string yesterday afternoon.

Balloons pose a serious threat to wildlife and should never be released to the environment. Animals often mistake them for food and die from ingesting them or become entangled in the strings.

Concerned about the balloon in the nest, we initiated discussions with an array of eagle experts and authorities. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was our first call. The FWS is the federal agency responsible for protecting eagles, enforcing eagle laws and granting emergency permits that allow human intervention with nesting eagles. Without such a permit, disturbing nesting eagles is a federal crime.

After careful consideration, the FWS determined that the balloon did not pose an immediate threat to the eagles’ ability to feed themselves, fly or care for their eggs. These are the key factors that would prompt an emergency intervention. The FWS also factored in that eagles are most sensitive to human activity during egg laying and incubation. Intervention of even limited duration brings the very real risk of nest abandonment or damage to the eggs. Our other eagle partners agreed with the FWS’s assessment.

If the situation had changed or hatchlings had been in the nest, the FWS’s decision may have been quite different. These experts do a careful case-by-case analysis in real time. They are educated in the welfare of all known U.S. eagle nests and take their duty very seriously.
Here at JBS, we are honored to be watchers of these impressive birds and guardians of their wetland habitat.

Our hope is to interfere as little as possible with nature – “nature” being the operative word, which garbage is not. This whole episode is a good reminder to bag that trash.

You can help contain the trash our eagles and other wildlife encounter at our annual highway cleanup on Saturday, Feb. 28.

13th Annual Highway Cleanup

By John Bunker Sands Wetland Center

13th Annual Highway Cleanup

Come help bag that trash! We never know where it'll end up.