♪ [ music ] ♪ >>: in 1980 my husband got out of school for architecture and designer, and to save funds we found a house he could live in and we could share as an office. i they built a veterinarian emergency clinic next to us, but anyways we got to know our
neighbors. one evening, actually a morning, they came by and said cindy, you know, we are are closing for the day and we have a seagull with a broken wing. you have a fenced in backyard, you like animals, might we put it in the backyard and take care
of it about three weeks and let it go. i go okay. that was the first bird. we kept getting more birds, and that summer we realized what we were doing, and you have to have a license to do it. there were 12 vets that ran the
emergency clinic, and when i went to their part of town they would send me birds from whatever area they were in. i was getting birds from all over duval county and nassau county. when we applied for a permit, of course they give it because they
needed a place to send the birds. the birds came from the coast guard, the navy, police department and schools and kept coming on in. you know, it was kind of surprising how many birds were coming in.
so we started beaks nonprofit so we could, you know, raise money to help take care of the birds. a really large oil spill happened in 1987 in february, and i left home in early february and i returned home again april 28th. i got married may 9th, i almost
missed my wedding. we gained a lot of recognition from the oil spill, responding to it, and it put us in the forefront, the oil spill recovery. we got married and my husband told me we were not getting married if the birds weren't out
of the house. we brought the birds up here in 1987 and we have been here since. he kept thinking to go back to landscape architect, but we have not. we are bird keepers. our business is education.
we work with children and let them see what happens with the environment, what happens with fishing, what happens with oil spills, what happens with loss of habitat. these children can then go on to their lives and, you know, maybe do something productive, maybe
make a good decision they wouldn't have made otherwise. where we are heading now is education, and working in our facilities and getting them to where we can do more work with the children, more work with education. i want to be able to have things
set up so when we go off and we retire it will be carried on into the future and keep doing the good work we have done. if a person finds an injured bird the best thing to do is if it's, you know, down, to get it into a cardboard box with a towel or sheet, put it in a
cardboard box and stay calm and quiet. don't try to feed it. if it is a baby bird you can try to get it back -- if it is a baby bird, if you can see the nest it came out of it is okay to pick the bird up and put it back in the nest.
mama doesn't care if you touch the baby bird. you know how squirrels and dogs and put it back where they want it, birds can't do that. if you can't get it in the nest, you can make a nest out of an easter basket, put paper towels in it and hang the basket near
where the original nest is, make sure it is sheltered from sun and rain. don't put it where it can be burned up by the sun or rained on. if you find an injured bird, stop and secure it. it is like a two year old child.
get the child safe and then find its mom, same thing to do with wildlife. you can get the bird to us or to hidden hills animal hospital on fort caroline road. they take care of 700 birds a year for us, and we pick them up during the week as we come in
because we are a long ways from town on talbot island. most important thing is to secure them as well as you can and bring them to us. we really are looking for contributions to help us to do this, accomplish this, and sooner or later we can retire.
31 years is a long time to do something shall and people don't realize we are volunteers, we are not paid. we have done it 31 years, my husband and myself, we have paid employees but i would like to be able to set it up so it will be here in the future, it is at
least done. you know, it is our life's mission, i don't want it to stop. i want it to go into the future. i think education, through good programs, through working with the community like we have in the past, to get to literally
concrete established so it can go forward. one time i was watching the winter olympics, it was on at night and i was watching in my apartment, and i let my dog go out to the bathroom, and i figured these kids have a tam ent.
they skate, they do all of these wonderful things, and have you to have a skill, i think a talent god gives you. i made a pact with god if he let me know what my talent was i wouldn't waste it. not long after that my husband got out of school, we got the
house we live in, and with all of the things i have done in my life i seem to have a talent and love for birds. somehow they know it and they let me take care of it. it has been a gift to me to be able to take care of these
