Cynthia Helen Mosling

Cindy Mosling, who shifted from an interior design career to almost 50 years pioneering wildlife rehabilitation in the Jacksonville area and rescuing thousands of ill or injured birds, has died after a brief battle with cancer.

She was 75.

"She was the most-selfless and loving person anyone could have ever met," daughter Olivia Liliskis said. "We have lost a true light in the world, she was like the sun and nothing could ever put out her light or her kindness. She was a truly amazing woman that no one could ever replace. She will always be the bird lady of Jacksonville."

When Ms. Mosling arrived at heaven's gate, she was surely greeted by a flock of birds, her longtime friend, Joanne Mirabella said. Over the years, she extended the lives of birds struck by automobiles, shot by humans, knocked from nests by storms, caught in oil spills and sickened by industrial products, among other calamities.

"She always had a bird in a box," Mirabella said. Those birds were destined for her sanctuary, a veterinarian or, after recovery, release back into the wild, "She just had a way of bringing them back."

In the 1980s, Mosling and husband Andrew Liliskis founded the now-closed nonprofit Bird Emergency Aid and Kare Sanctuary, or BEAKS, on Big Talbot Island. Their first rescues were cared for in their San Marco home, but more and more birds meant the need for more space, so they bought property on one of Jacksonville's barrier islands.

Mayor Donna Deegan said Mosling, whose knowledge was based on hands-on experience and courses that qualified her as a state and federal sanctuary keeper, was the bird person to call.

"No one cared more about saving birds than Cindy Mosling. When I was anchoring the news, she was always the go-to expert and never turned away an injured bird regardless of the day or hour," Deegan said. "She stayed at BEAKS, the bird sanctuary, for many years beyond when she wanted to retire because she just couldn’t bring herself to let go of her life’s mission. Jacksonville has lost a strong advocate and a wonderful human being."

Now-retired veterinarian Peggy Shashy began volunteering for Mosling when she was a teenager and later provided professional veterinary support. Mosling, she said, had a particular "rapport" with all birds, but particularly raptors.

"She just had a really gentle touch. Birds responded to her really, really well," she said. Mosling's death and the closure of BEAKS is a "tremendous loss to the community," she said.

Jonathan Howard, a fellow wildlife rehabilitator who founded a sanctuary in Hilliard now called OtterSpace Wildlife, agreed.

"I did not know her on a personal level, but her work with birds was great," he said. "Any we got for years went to BEAKS. Any mammals she got we normally got a call to go and get." Her death, he said, is a "loss of knowledge that can’t be easily regained."

Karen Ward-Lynch is founder of The Ark Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation in St. Augustine, which currently accepts only wild birds. She bonded with Mosling over their shared love of birds.

"It was her passion," she said. "She and I were 'birds, birds, birds.' It's a calling."

Mosling, who died on March 3, was born in 1950 in Osh Kosh, Wisconsin. She received a bachelor of design degree from the University of Florida's College of Architecture and embarked on an interior design career in Jacksonville.

But then a nearby emergency veterinary clinic asked her and her husband to care for a sick seagull in their backyard for a weekend. That experience stopped Mosling in her tracks, eventually pulling her away from interior design and into wildlife rehabilitation.

"It was quite a crazy life living with her. Taking care of birds was a 24/7 job, so there have been many days and nights spent chasing down birds and or caring for them," Olivia Liliskis said. "One time I even came home to a bald eagle in our kitchen and I had to hold his talons while she fed him.

"Parrots would talk to her while she fed them and ask if she loved them," she said. "She developed close relationships with many owls and crows over the years who would watch over her on the BEAKS property."

But despite her 24/7 bird passion, Mosling also took care of her beloved family — husband Andrew, daughter Olivia and son Noah — even making daily home-cooked meals.

"She will always be the … the best mom and dedicated wife of over 50 years to my dad who would call her 'his Valentine gal,'" her daughter said.

Mosling became known as a "bird whisperer," said another longtime friend, Gerie Leigh.

"She truly had a kind heart," she said. "She would do anything for birds."

If one of Mosling's birds was dying, she would talk to it so it would not be alone in its final moments, she said.

Her exploits included climbing a 90-foot radio tower to save baby ospreys threatened by a maintenance project and using a net to scoop another bird from a JEA water tank. With the help of volunteers, she cleaned hundreds of birds caught in a 1987 oil spill in Jacksonville.

When a hurricane threatened the sanctuary, Mosling arranged for 200 or so birds to be loaded onto trucks and taken inland, Leigh said. They rode out the storm at the Callahan home of Leigh's daughter.

Also, she took on environmental agencies that she said allowed Jacksonville firefighters to dump 60,000 gallons of a firefighting foam into the St. Johns River that made birds sick. The situation made Mosling so "fired up" that she enlisted Leigh, who lived along the river, to collect daily vials of river water for testing.

But her kindness was not reserved for birds.

Mosling was also a passionate supporter of art and helped establish the Scholastic Arts Awards. When Leigh, then an art teacher who chaired the initiative, sought a donation toward a $3,000 goal, her friend wrote a $3,000 check on the spot.

Visitation will be 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday, March 22, at Hardage-Giddens Oaklawn Legacy Lodge, 4801 San Jose Blvd. in Jacksonville.