{"id":356835,"date":"2026-07-29T22:43:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T22:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/356835\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T22:43:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T22:43:45","slug":"two-charged-with-spreading-mothballs-on-st-pete-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/356835\/","title":{"rendered":"Two charged with spreading mothballs on St. Pete Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) &#8211; Two St. Petersburg men have been arrested after allegedly spreading mothballs behind a hotel on St. Pete Beach, endangering protected birds, wildlife officials said Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers arrested Christopher S. Monroe and Robert C. Czyszczon on Wednesday and charged them with felony littering for commercial purposes and misdemeanor attempt to take threatened shorebird species.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">On April 20, FWC officers responded to reports of mothballs scattered on St. Pete Beach behind the Plaza Beach Hotel. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The officers worked with volunteers from the Audubon Society and concerned beachgoers to remove the mothballs, where threatened and endangered shorebirds were actively nesting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">More mothballs were found on the same beach the next day, FWC said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Mothballs contain chemicals that can be toxic to humans, birds and other wildlife. When placed on beaches, they can also be blown into the water, creating additional hazards for marine life, and waste into marine environments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Activity that contaminates or disturbs nesting and foraging habitat can have serious consequences for endangered species\u2019 survival and recovery, the FWC said in a news release. <\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WWSB. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) &#8211; Two St. Petersburg men have been arrested after allegedly spreading mothballs behind a hotel&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[692,513,4747,106221,3030,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-356835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-arrest","tag-beach","tag-fwc","tag-mothballs","tag-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}