The Corpus Christi Field Office carried out a half-day project to remove trash from 45 colonial waterbird nesting islands in the Upper Laguna Madre.  Trash removal enhances the islands’ habitat value for foraging and nesting waterbirds and shorebirds by reducing the risk of entanglement (especially from fishing line) and toxicity or suffocation from swallowing debris.  The Field Office partnered with the Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Audubon, and U.S. Geological Survey to provide boats and staff to get volunteers to islands and to bring them and the trash back in.  Forty-four people participated, including volunteers from several Boy Scout troops, one ROTC unit, one church, and the public at large. A large dump truck furnished by the City of Corpus Christi’s Stormwater Department was filled.  This event also provided an educational venue as Service staff described the diversity of bird species and explained adverse impacts of trash.  The City provided a map of drainage to this bay system to illustrate one of the biggest sources of trash and how this can be reduced or eliminated by behavior changes.