'Birdman of Kings Bay' a friend to the feathered

By GORDON JACKSON

The Florida Times-Union

ST. MARYS, Ga. — Lt. Tony Eliasen's job as an instructor at Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base contradicts his education at Auburn University, where he majored in environmental science.

Instead of trying to save the environment, his job in the Navy is to train sailors to detonate nuclear weapons capable of enormous destruction.

In his free time, however, the nuclear engineer returns to his first interest from his college days.

"There's a lot of things we can do environmentally," he said. "It's more than just driving a hybrid."

For the past three years, Eliasen has volunteered to help research and protect birds on base. His work has earned him the nickname "the birdman of Kings Bay."

"I grew up in Colorado, where we managed the wildlife," Eliasen said. "I saw a lot of things we can do environmentally. That's why I volunteered."

Eliasen said he asked the base's natural resources manager to allow him to work with birds on base after he and his wife, Alicia, discovered a chimney swift in their home's chimney.

Before reporting to work each day and during his lunch breaks, he checks nests in purple martin boxes, which contain enough chambers for 16 nests. He played purple martin songs on a CD player to attract the birds to the 20 boxes.

Eliasen has renovated old birdhouses for bluebirds and helped erect 52 new boxes for them. He is also working to improve habitat for chimney swifts and loggerhead shrikes.

Paul Schoenfeld, the natural resources manager at Kings Bay, said Eliasen's environmental education makes him a valuable volunteer.

"When I realized he had the qualifications, I had a lot more work for him to do," Schoenfeld said. "He's got a keen interest in ornithology. He's pretty much covered the whole base with me."

Eliasen's research on loggerhead shrikes is particularly important because the birds are declining in numbers for some unknown reason, Schoenfeld said.

"I've noticed they are declining on base," he said. "They're a species of concern. He ran with it and established baseline data."

Eliasen is working with Seabees to build more habitat for chimney swifts by taking old culverts and placing them vertically. The Seabees are building platforms to hold the heavy concrete culverts so they don't sink into the ground or topple over.

"He's better than paid help," Schoenfeld said. "He's qualified and motivated. He's been a tremendous contributor to the environmental program."

Besides creating more habitat for the birds, Eliasen said one of the benefits of volunteering is there are fewer biting insects on base. A chimney swift eats as many as 3,000 mosquitoes a day and as many as 9,000 a day when young are on the nest, he said.

"I've learned a ton about environmental science," he said. "I'll stay involved with birds no matter where I go (in the Navy). It's been a lot of fun."