Couple Sets Sights High for Birds

A funny thing happened to Cynthia Mosling’s promising career as a commercial interior designer--she says she was suckered by a sick sea gull.

Mosling now spends her days with bald eagles, hawks, owls, pelicans and other fowl--most of which are sick, injured or recovering from gunshot wounds, chemical burns, oil spills, collisions with cars and errant fishing lines.

Mosling and her husband, Andrew Liliskis, operate a bird sanctuary called BEAKS (Bird Emergency Aid and Kare Sanctuary) on a 13-acre wooded compound on the Mud River north of Jacksonville.

The sanctuary, nestled between the Little Talbot Island State Park and the Timucuan Preserve, receives no city, state or federal money. It relies instead on private donations and a few corporate sponsors for the $200,000 needed to operate each year.

While BEAK’s goal is to return the airborne creatures to the wild, about half the birds end up living out their lives under the care of Mosling and a staff of mostly volunteers.

In all, the sanctuary harbors about 400 sick and injured birds. Permanent residents include Orion, an immature bald eagle shot in the wing and back in mid-December; Isis, another bald eagle, whose feathers have been turned white by chemical contamination and who is suffering from a cracked wrist; Radar, a small barred owl born without any eyes, possibly the result of chemical contamination, and Peabody, a pelican with only one wing.

Although she is disgusted by the accidental injuries birds receive, she gets angry when someone intentionally hurts one.

“I was not trained to deal with intentional mutilation,” she said.

Mosling uses real-life examples to make her points when about 60 to 90 schoolchildren visit the sanctuary daily during the school year.

An owl with one eye is an effective way to illustrate the damage a kid with a BB gun can do. “Seeing them can make a difference,” she said.

She shows youngsters pelicans with wings severed by fishing lines and talks about the loss of wildlife habitat and the dangers of pollution to birds.

Mosling is an expert in that field and helped write the state’s emergency response plan for oil spills.

When a cargo ship, the Fernpassat, ran aground at Mayport in 1989, spilling 100,000 gallons of fuel oil, Mosling and volunteers spent more than eight weeks cleaning 407 birds.

At the same time she was planning her wedding. She took off one afternoon to try on her wedding gown and talk to the church organist about music when her beeper went off.

A group of oil-soaked pelicans that had refused for seven weeks to come off the Mayport jetties marched into the cleanup area. “They were starting to starve,” she said.

Now Mosling has 23 injured pelicans in a small pond.

So do tourists who see the BEAKS sign on State Highway A1A and venture down the mile-long dirt road.

Mosling, 46, got into the bird business by chance when she was an interior designer 16 years ago. Veterinarians in business next door persuaded her to take care of a sea gull with an injured wing.

“They suckered me in with a sea gull--40,000 birds ago,” she said.

After caring for one bird, the news got around and people would literally drop off birds on her front porch. “I made a pact with God. I said, ‘Let me know what my talent is, I will make the most of it and not waste it,’ ” she said.

When she married Liliskis 10 years ago, they cared for baby birds in their honeymoon suite. He has given up his careers in the theater and as a landscape architect to work with his wife.

In 1988, they moved from a condominium in Jacksonville’s trendy San Marco section to a mobile home on Big Talbot Island.

“I’ve never worked so hard, worked so many hours and have never been so happy. Every day is a delight,” said Mosling. “There is nothing I would rather do than this.

“Little miracles keep happening over and over in front of our eyes.”

BEAKS can be reached at 12084 Houston Ave., Big Talbot Island, Fla. 32226.