• A slide lecture or film to instruct volunteers in the correct techniques for handling, cleaning, and post-care of oiled birds.
• A selected bibliography of key references on oiled-bird cleaning and care.
• Appendices to the plan should include maps of the major coastal oil terminals, bays, and estuarine areas with heavy oil transport traffic. Map overlays would depict the location of resident species and the migratory patterns, species composition, relative abundance, and winter concentration areas of migrants. Additional overlays would locate commercially important demersal seafood areas (e.g., oyster and abalone beds, lobster and crabbing locales) and marine mammal habitats. Further refinement of an atlas could include information on tides, prevailing winds, ocean currents, and water mass movements to assist in predicting the path of spilled oil.
What Has Been Accomplished
The petroleum industry, through the API, took prompt steps to mitigate the problem after the first seabird mortalities were reported from Santa Barbara in 1969. They commissioned a young aviculturist, Philip Stanton, who has extensive experience working with wild waterfowl, to start a research program on cleaning and caring for oiled birds. At his Wildlife Rehabilitation Center at Upton, Massachusetts. Stanton, with the help of API, has been conducting research on oiled birds for 7 years. He is also an assistant professor of biology at nearby Framingham State College. Stanton's studies (unpublished) include investigations on food shape and color preferences in wild ducks, the effects of lengthened photoperiods on breeding of arctic geese, and the effects of diets of varying protein concentrations on growth and development of the common eider duck.
As a result of his research on cleaning techniques and agents, Stanton has recommended a nontoxic liquid cleaner called Polycomplex A-11. Although not perfect, it is one of several cleaning agents being successfully used today. He has authored a "how to" guide for oiled-bird treatment entitled "Operation Rescue" and prepared a companion bibliography (Stanton 1972). These booklets have been distributed throughout the United States to State and Federal agencies and conservation organizations. He has provided consulting services at numerous spills and has worked to establish oiled-wildlife treatment centers in coastal States.
Since 1972 the API has sponsored an avian physiology study at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Under the direction of W. N. Holmes, the studies are directed at the effects of ingested crude oil and petroleum products on marine birds. Holmes has revealed that small quantities of crude oil introduced into the gut of a saltwater-adapted bird can affect the mucosal transport and extra-renal excretory mechanisms, resulting in acute dehydration and eventual death. Dr. Holmes is also examining the effects of the various distillation fractions derived from crude oil and the long-term effects of ingested oil in mature birds. Incidentally, Alaska North Slope oil was found to be almost innocuous when administered to ducklings in amounts similar to the effective doses of other oils (Holmes and Cronshaw 1975).
Refined products (diesel oil, No. 2 fuel oil, and Bunker "C") are known to be more toxic than crude oil. For example, the relatively small spills of Bunker "C" at Tampa, Florida, in 1970 and in San Francisco in 1971 caused approximate mortalities of 90 and 20 birds per ton of spilled product, respectively. The crude oil spills of the Torrey Canyon and at Santa Barbara, however, resulted in mortalities of only 0.5 and 0.6 bird per ton of oil (Clark 1973).
Dr. Holmes is now testing measured amounts of the above refined oils on adult birds. He is determining the degree of dehydration incurred, the resulting pathological changes, and the replacement (hormonal and electrolyte) therapy necessary to rehabilitate the birds.
It is obviously important to keep as many birds away from an oil slick as possible. This was the objective of an API contract with the Av-Alarm Corporation of Santa Maria, California. Their objective was to determine the feasibility of repelling aquatic birds from an area by using an acoustical jamming device as the stimulus.