There is a man in South Los Angeles who doesn't have much, but everything he has, he spends feeding the birds and stray cats of Santa Monica.

LA Times photographer Mel Macon and columnist Steve Lopez profiled Augustine Hurtado, the bird feeder who does more with less. Lopez joined Lisa McRee on "LA Times Today."

Lopez described Hurtado's routine.

"He wakes up quite early, he catches the Metro. He goes all the way to the beach on [an electric] scooter that is loaded up with 150 pounds of grain, and his dog, Sparky, is his apprentice. It's an all-day excursion that takes him an hour or two to get there. He unloads that grain, and he feeds first the pigeons, then the seagulls, and turns around and goes home."

Hurtado's daughter provided him with housing in Riverside County, but he couldn't stop thinking of the animals he'd fed in LA. So, Lopez said, Hurtado returned to his home on the streets to continue his mission. 

“He just has the drive to be there for them. He says things like, if it weren't for him, who else would feed these animals? I'm not sure that they need to be fed, to be perfectly honest. Feeding wild animals in this way maybe is not the best thing for their welfare or the environment. But he just believes that this is his mission in life."

Lopez explained that Hurtado funds his efforts by playing a harmonica at the beach and accepting money from passersby.  

"This is a man who makes as much as $300, $400, $500 a day playing the harmonica badly and spends just about all of it on grain. We've made the rounds with him, went to the Superior Market in the neighborhood where he lives. He buys chicken hot dogs because he says the seagulls love them... And he stands on the beach and tosses them up, 10 of hot dogs flying up into the air, and the seagulls know him when they see him."

Transporting bags of feed is physically taxing. Lopez said Hurtado will keep doing it until he or his motorized scooter gives out.

Click the arrow above to watch the full interview.

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