More dead pelicans, seagulls wash up in North Myrtle Beach and officials don’t know why
More dead birds were found on the beach in North Myrtle Beach on Sunday, and local and state officials are still trying to determine the cause.
There’s also a discrepancy over just how many dead birds were found Saturday, when estimates ranged from several to “dozens” or even “hundreds.”
“The bottom line is that birds perished and were found on our beach, and as of this writing we do not know why,” North Myrtle Beach officials said via email Sunday morning.
A day after North Myrtle Beach officials refuted social media postings indicating there were “dozens” or even “hundreds” of dead birds found on the beach, the city said the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources reported finding 30 on Saturday. North Myrtle Beach also noted that its beach patrol had found 10 more birds Sunday — a pelican that was barely alive and seagulls that had died.
“SCDNR was contacted and will take the birds,” the email said.
Later Sunday afternoon, The Sun News witnessed two or three more dead birds in a four- or five-block area from Cherry Grove Pier southward.
As of just after 3 p.m. Sunday, North Myrtle Beach officials reported that the U.S. Coast Guard and S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control personnel flew the coast from Myrtle Beach to Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, and saw no evidence of fuel spills.
Previously, some social media posts suggested that the bird deaths had been due to a diesel spill emanating from the beach renourishment dredge vessel located off the shore.
“No fuel spill has been identified offshore or onshore,” said the city, which is sending birds off for a necropsy — similar to a human autopsy. “There is no exterior evidence that any of the dead birds found to date were contaminated by a fuel spill.”
Jared Hendrix, with Surfrider Foundation, an area nonprofit whose mission is “to protect and preserve the world’s oceans, waves and beaches,” said he’s not heard of a bird kill like this since one in the late 1990s in Myrtle Beach that was the result of a cargo ship’s diesel spill.
“You’ll occasionally find dead birds on the beach, but to find that many in such a small, limited time and area is unusual,” he said, adding that Surfrider is also sending at least one bird for a necropsy.
North Myrtle Beach officials acknowledged that the renourishment dredge vessel was no longer offshore as of Sunday morning. However, the city said, it left because its work here is done, not because it “escaped town” or “fled” because it did something wrong as some have speculated.
“The contractor’s work replacing sand lost to Hurricane Irma is complete, and the vessel is now working offshore in the Arcadian Shores area of Horry County doing that part of the overall beach renourishment project,” the email said.
The vessel is scheduled to return in the spring for more work, the city said.
“As planned, the contractor will return to North Myrtle Beach next spring to replace sand lost during Hurricane Florence,” the email said. “Initially, the contractor was to have combined both projects into one but renourishment work in Myrtle Beach was significantly delayed, pushing Hurricane Florence sand replacement work for North Myrtle Beach into spring.”
The U.S. Coast Guard, S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, S.C. Department of Natural Resources and beach renourishment contractors worked together over the weekend in hopes of finding an explanation for the dead birds, the city said. North Myrtle Beach will continue to work with those agencies in order to find answers, the email states.
Hendrix has been trying to make sense of the situation as well, searching for logic in what so far has been a mystery.
“You’ve got to think about it — you’ve got three different type of birds that are washing up dead: pelicans, gulls and pipers. The difference between a pelican and a piper is huge, size wise, what they eat,” he said. “So yeah, I don’t want to speculate. We’ll just have to kind of wait on lab reports and see what they find. That’s about all we can really do.”
This story was originally published December 16, 2018 at 1:44 PM.
