No Bait House at the St. Pete Pier … unless | Column – Tampa Bay Times

As the self-appointed Pelican czar of St. Petersburg, I feel the need to weigh in on a controversy at City Hall. It has been a year since I stood before the City Council to celebrate their vote to name the brown pelican as the official bird of the city. The year has produced pelican art, pelican music and pelican poetry to help raise the spirits of the city.
Not a vaccine, but good medicine during a pandemic.
From reports I have read, the kerfuffle at City Hall involved the Bait House that was a popular fixture at the old St. Petersburg piers since 1926. Nestled snugly next to that awkwardly inverted pyramid, it was a favorite spot for tourists, children and people who liked to fish. It was also a favorite of seabirds, including pelicans who learned to waddle by for some free grub.
Almost every feature photo I have seen of the Bait House shows people feeding the pelicans.
When the pier was torn down in 2015, the Bait House was moved to an outdoor city storage area. For years, no one loved it or sought to preserve it until a council member Robert Blackmon wondered whether it might be moved back to the new Pier District, a curious piece of our history.
There is disagreement about the timing, but somewhere along the way, Mayor Rick Kriseman ordered the deteriorating structure destroyed.
This led to unusual friction between the mayor and the City Council with side arguments about communication and authority. Perhaps a replica of the old Bait House might be built for the new Pier? Would the cost be worth it?
Here is where I take off my writer’s cap and don the mantle of Pelican czar. I use “czar” because, after all, St. Petersburg was named after a city in Russia.
Replacing the Bait House is a bad idea … unless ….
I will get to the “unless” in a minute. After consultation with experts, I can testify that feeding seabirds is a really bad idea, especially bad for birds like pelicans. It lures them into danger zones where people are fishing. Pelicans may look picturesque preening on pier pilings, but you never know when they might go after bait fish, get hooked, and become entangled in monofilament lines.
The result can be painful deaths and dragging lines back to nesting areas, creating a danger to other birds.
I saw it happen myself. In a spot near Blind Pass on St. Pete Beach, we watched a young fisherman cast his line. When the lure hit the water, a pelican dropped from the sky and grabbed it.
Many fishermen will do the wrong thing and cut the line. But this young man was brilliant. He slowly brought the bird to the seawall, climbed down on the rocks, hugged the bird, extracted the hook with a tool, and released the pelican back into the water. He sported a bloody hand for his good work, and I applauded him.
Audubon experts have worked hard at educating fishermen along local piers. With volunteers they explore nesting places to free birds who have been hooked or tangled. They have saved the lives of countless pelicans and other species.
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Controversies about the pelican and the city go back to 1918, when the Great War raged and the Spanish flu pandemic was brewing. Historian Gary Mormino schooled me on what was called the Great Pelican War, when commercial fishermen slaughtered pelicans by the thousands. They argued that the birds were eating too much of the fish supply, cheating fishermen of their bounty.
Newspapers covered the controversy. A writer for the Largo Sentinel argued for putting a bounty on the “ugly bird.” Some accused the poor pelican of being unpatriotic — a bird that was depriving Americans of the food and nourishment they needed to defeat the Hun!
Scientists of the time — with the same frustration they face today — demonstrated that the pelican favored small fish, not the big ones, and played no role in depleting the fish supply.
So, please, members of the City Council, let us not resurrect a structure at the new Pier that was, over most of a century, a virtual slaughterhouse for seabirds.
Here comes the “unless.” Unless that house functions, not as a place where bait is sold and birds are fed, but as a place that acknowledges the mistakes of the past and honors the great role that seabirds have played in the history of our fair city.
Roy Peter Clark is a contributing writer. He teaches writing at the Poynter Institute, which owns the Tampa Bay Times.
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