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| Photo Credit: AP. |
PINE ISLAND, Fla. (AP) — Will Peratino and his partner Lauren Stepp would not leave their Pine Island compound, even as authorities pleaded with residents to abandon their homes because of damaged roads, including a collapsed bridge that prevented deliveries of food, gas and other life-sustaining supplies.
But the
couple could not leave without their two lemurs and flock of birds — 275
parrots, including some of the world’s rarest.
So a rescue
mission — dubbed “Operation Noah’s Ark” — was launched Tuesday to catch, cage
and ferry the birds off the island, as a condition to persuade Peratino and
Stepp to leave the island.
“We would
not abandon them. I would never leave them. Never,” said Stepp, as volunteers
worked on collecting the flock from dozens of coops at the Malama Manu
Sanctuary. “If they cannot be fed or watered, they will die. And I can’t live
with that.”
“Malama” is
the Hawaiian word for protect, “manu” means bird.
The birds
have been relying on food donated by wildlife officials since Hurricane Ian
hit, but the supply of fruit, peanuts and other edibles would soon be hard to
come by because of the downed bridge and the scarcity of gasoline on the
island.
Hurricane
Ian battered Southwest Florida a week ago with 150 mph gusts, making some roads
impassable and islands inaccessible. Wind-driven rains and ocean surges brought
dangerous flooding.
In the hours
before the storm, the sanctuary owners herded their flock of birds and packed
them into their home to shield them from the ferocity of the elements.
“You don’t
know what we’ve been through here. We had four feet of water in the house,
damned-near drowned,” Peratino said, before succumbing to tears.
“To have
every bird safe is a huge undertaking,” Peratino said. “I mean, it’s almost
impossible to do. So the kind of help we’ve gotten has been invaluable.”
Many of the
birds were rescued from homes that could no longer care for them. Some are used
for breeding rare species.
While the
focus of many search and rescue missions has been on human life, there have
also been pet rescues.
Bryan Stern,
the founder and leader of Project Dynamo, which assembled four boats for the
mission, said his team has rescued at least six dogs, three cats and, before
Tuesday’s massive rescue, three birds.
“Our animal
numbers are about to be blown out of the water by 100 cages of parrots,” Stern
said, before embarking on the rescue mission.
“It’s been
nuts,” said James Judge, who owns the boat “Slice of Life,” which led the small
flotilla of rescue boats.
“Will and
Laura, who own the sanctuary, their hearts and souls are in the birds. So
they’re going through their own suffering from the hurricane,” Stern said, “and
having to rebuild their lives. They lost all kinds of stuff. Is the answer to
that to lose more?”
The crew of
volunteers was not about to let that happen.
For several
hours Tuesday, the volunteers stuck nets and their bare hands into cages to pen
the birds in cages. The birds — from macaws to cockatoos and rare specimens of
king parrots (only two dozen pairs are kept in the United States) — squawked
and flapped their wings and their handlers put them in cages.
Some
whistled and spoke, including several with mischievous vocabularies.
Ghassan
Abboud, a Chicago dentist who owns a bird farm in West Palm Beach, is an
acquaintance of the sanctuary owners. When he heard of their plight, he
mustered his resources to help. He had imagined commissioning a small boat to
ferry cages from Pine Island to a dock on the mainland, where an
air-conditioned trailer would transport the birds to his property across the
Florida peninsula.
But by
chance he came across the Project Dynamo team, who have been volunteering to
help rescue people stranded by floodwaters and damaged roads.
“I could
never write a script like this. It was perfect. I thought I’d be back all day
long in a small boat,” Abboud said. “What these guys have done has been
unimaginable. They dedicated their resources. They saved so many birds.”
Corrects
spelling of the first name of Bryan Stern.