GOWRS member, the RSPCA, looks back on epic rescue mission to save oiled birds
from a RSPCA press release originally dated March 18, 2017
The recent collision between the MV Stena Immaculate and the container vessel Solong of the east coast of England, and the subsequent aftermath, has raised the spectre of possible environmental damage to the surrounding coasts along with the potential to injure many wild animals that thrive in these habitats. Sea birds are particularly vulnerable to spilled oil, especially alcid species, like guillemots, that raft on the surface of the sea.
One of the GOWRS Network members, the RSPCA, is the primary response organization in England and Wales for oiled wildlife and is named as such in the UK’s National Contingency Plan. The RSPCA has been involved in a number of spills over the years, with the first recorded rescue of oiled birds being recorded in their annual report in 1946.
However, it was an incident fifty eight years ago, when the oil tanker Torrey Canyon ran aground on Seven Stones, off the Isles of Scilly on 18th March 1967, that drove the RSPCA to better understand the impact of oil on wildlife and how it could be remedied.
It was the worst oil spill ever to hit UK shores and now five decades and the RSPCA, along with many other organizations and volunteers, played an important role in trying to save almost 8,000 of sick and dying seabirds.
The events of the following days resulted in the worst oil spill in the UK with oil arriving on the Cornish coast from Newquay to the Lizard and slicks seen from Hartland Point in north Devon to Start Point in the south.
The size of the spill had a major impact on wildlife and the RSPCA launched a massive rescue operation in response to the disaster in an effort to save the thousands of oiled and dying seabirds that were so badly affected by the slick.
Initially birds were sent to the small wild bird hospital in Mousehole, with the first arriving on the 24 March which was Good Friday. After they received 250 birds over the Easter weekend, plans were made to open up bird cleaning stations at other locations around Cornwall, such as St Ives, Hayle and Perranporth.
By Easter Monday, the hospital at Mousehole had received over 600 birds with more coming at regular intervals. By 30th March over 1,000 birds had been rescued with more coming in.
RSPCA staff at Mousehole worked flat out from 7am to 11pm, struggling with facilities that were not equipped to deal with such an avalanche of birds.
Over the next few weeks almost 8,000 birds were found, many still alive, and taken to the various RSPCA centres established round the south west coast. However many were unable to be saved due to the sheer numbers of birds and the lack of facilities and knowledge available at the time.
Things have changed a great deal since then. Disasters like the Torrey Canyon and Sea Empress in 1996 in the UK, the Erika in France in 1999, the Treasure in South Africa in 2000 and the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989 have all forced oiled bird rehabilitation to become more professional.
In the years after the Torrey Canyon, the RSPCA enabled scientific research to determine the impacts of oil on wildlife, the best detergents to use to clean the animals and the tracking of wild animals after they have been cleaned, rehabilitated and released to investigate how they survive long term. Collaborations with universities, such as Newcastle, played a major role in the improvements in treatment and care of oiled wildlife casualties, such as determining that Fairy Liquid was the best product to clean the oil of contaminated animals. This research has since been developed further by groups like TriState and OWCN.
The RSPCA now has four dedicated wildlife centres equipped with specialist facilities for cleaning oiled birds. Although they do not see the numbers of oiled birds they used to admit, they still receive birds that have been oiled in small spills, both inland and at sea.
The RSPCA’s experience and knowledge of rehabilitating oiled birds is respected around the world and we have been involved in many international responses in the past, such as the MV Treasure in South Africa in 2000 and the Prestige off the coast of Spain in 2002.
More recently the RSPCA has been working with oiled wildlife response groups from many different countries to improve preparedness and develop better oiled wildlife response capabilities. The Global Oiled Wildlife Response System is the result of a project that was started in 2015 and includes oiled wildlife response organisations from New Zealand, Brazil, South Africa, America and Europe, all working together to develop a collaborative global approach to oiled wildlife rehabilitation.
Thankfully, major incidents like this are rare but by sharing the combined knowledge of all these organizations and their experience, oiled wildlife responders like the RSPCA can provide not only a better response when wildlife is oiled, especially in areas of the world where there is no local capacity to help, but they can also provide advice and guidance to prevent oil impacting wildlife in the first place. This is achieved by advising those developing oiled spill contingency plans to have mitigation in place to prevent animals either reaching the oil, or to prevent the oil reaching the animals, because prevention s always beter thena cure.
Oiled wildlife response has come a long way in the 50 plus years since the Torrey Canyon, with much more emphasis on collaborative working, not only between oiled wildlife response groups, but industry as well, and more resources placed into preventing animals from being oiled, should an incident occur.
The collision between the MV Stena Immaculate and the Solong is a stark reminder that collision between shipping still occur, even with today’s tracking and satellite technology, but we hope that,thanks to all the developments over the past 50 years, we are better prepared for them.