Oiled Seabird Rescue and Conservation'

R. B . C lnnn

Departmetft ol Zoology, University ol Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.

Cranx, R. B. 1978. Oiled seabird rescue and conservation. J. Fish, Res. Board Can. 35:67 5_67 8.

Attempts were made to clean and rehabil i tate nearly 8000 oi led birds (mainly auks)fol lowing the wreck of lhe Torrey Canyon. This was zrn almost total fai lure and a ResealchUnit on the Rehabil i tat ion of Oiled Seabirds was establ ished in Newcastle upon Tyne todevise effective treatment methods. This has involved a study of the mechanism of water-repellency in seabird plumage and led to the development of cheap, effective cleaningmethods and ful l recovery of the birds within 2-3 wk of capturc. These methods have beenused successful ly on small numbers of birds by amateurs and also operational ly on largernumbers by the Research Unit. There have been only few ringing ret l l rns but at least someof the cleaned birds became reintegrated with the breeding populat ions after release.Even with appropriate organization and facilities it is doubtful whether the lescue andtreatment of oi led birds can make a material contr ibution to seabird conservation, butthere is often strong public plessure for the treatment of oiled birds and the developmentof suitable techniques makes this possible.

Key words: oiled seabird rescue, conservation, water-repellent plumage

Cllm, R. B. 1978. Oiled seabird rescue and conservation. J. Fish. Res. Board Can. 35:67 5-678.

On a essay6 de nettoyer et r6habil i ter prds de 8 000 oiseaux (des pingor.r ins et grandepartie) recouverts de p6trole ir la suite du naufrage dt Torrey Canl'otr. Ce fut un ichecpresque total, et I'on mit sur pied i Newcastle upon Tyne une unit6 de recherche sur lar6habilitation des oiseaux de mer affect6s par le p6trole, dans le but de d6couvrir desm6thodes efficaces de traitement. On a 6tudi6 le m6canisme d'imperm6abilit6 c1u plumagedes oiseatrx de mer. Les r6sultats de l '6tude ont 6tE la d6couverte de m6thodes eff icaces etpeu dispendieuses de nettoyage et rdtabl issement complet des oiseaux en dedans de 2 ir 3sem aprds la capture. Ces m6thodes ont 6t6 appl iqu6es avec succds sur de peti ts nombresd'oiseaux par des amateurs et aussi sur de grands nombres au cours des op6rations del 'unit6 de r€cherche. Les retours d'oiseaux bagu6s, quelque rares qu' i ls soient, incl iquenfau moins que les oiseaux nettoy6s se sont r6int6gr'6s aux populat ions t 'eproclt tctr ices aprdsmise en l ibert6. I l est douteux que le traitement d'oiseaux recouverts de p6trole, n-r€meavec une organisation et des installations appropri6es, contribue mat6riellement ir ia con-seryation des ojseaux de mer. Mais le publ ic exerce souvent de fortes pressions pour quel 'on traite les oiseaux affect6s par le p6trole, trai lement rendu possible pal des techniquesappropri6es.

Accepted December 7, 1977

ForrowrNc the wreck of the Torrey Canyon in March1967, some 8000 oi led seabirds, mainly gui l lemot (Urinaalge) and razorbi l l (Alca torda), were rescued frombeaches in southwest England and distr ibuted to indi-viduals and organizations over a wide area for cleaningand rehabil i tat ion. The operation was an almost totalfailure. One or two bird.s were restored to health andsurvived a number of years in captivi ty, but i t is nearlycertain that none were restored to the natural popula-t ion. The overwhelming majori ty died as a direct result

'This paper forms part of the Proceedings of the Sym-posium on "Recovery Potential of Oiled Marine NorthernEnvironments" held at Halifax. Nova Scotia. October 10-14, 1.977.

Printed in Canada (J5070)Imprim6 au Canada (J5070)

Accept6 \e 7 dlcembre 7977

of oi l ing or, i t must be said. as a consequence of thetreatment they received during cleaning and the at-tenrpted rehabil i tat ion.

As a result of this disastrous experience, in November1967 the Advisory Committee on Oil Pol lut ion of theSea establ ished a Research Unit on the Rehabil i tat ion ofOiled Seabirds in the University of Newcastle uponTyne. Funds for this were init ial ly provided by nationaland international animal welfare organizations and theU.K. Inst i tute of Petroleum, but from 1970 unti l theUnit closed in Septen.rber 197 5. i t was supported throughthe Advisory Committee by donations from a numberof oi l companies.

Although a wide variety of water birds are at r iskfrom oi l pol lut ion, the most important casualt ies in theNorthern Hemisphere are auks and some diving seaducks. Because they are gregarious and spend much of

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676 J. FISH. RES. BOARD CAN.. VOL. 35. 1978

their t ime on the sea, and dive rather than f ly up whendisturbed, these species are part icularly exposed to con-tarnination by f loating oi l and i f contaminated are l ikelyto be heavi ly coated with oi l . Furthermore, because oftheir extremely low reproductive rate they are unableto restore losses from the populat ion except over avery long t irne. In Bri t ish waters auks are the chiefcasualt ies of oi l pol lut ion and their numbers have beendecl ining in many Brit ish colonies during this century(though this is not entirely due to oi l pol lut ion). Theyare also the most di i l lcult birds to keep healthy in cap-t ivi ty. The Research Unit therefore focnssed i ts attentionon these birds. and principal ly on gui l lemots. I f suit-able treatment methods could be devised for these. otherspecies would present no problem.

Research Programs of the Unit

One of the first tasks of the Unit was to find outwhat was already known about the effect of petroleumoils on seabirds and also to try and dist i l the experienceof the numerous people who had tr ied to clean andtreat oi led seabirds (Clark 1969; Clark and Kennedy1968.1971 ) . F rom these enqu i r ies i t became c lear tha tthe mortal i ty of oi led birds fel l into two categories: theeffects of oi l ing i tself (hypothermia, drowning. pneu-monia, enteri t is, starvation) and what may be describedas diseases of captivi ty (aspergi l losis, infect ive arthri t is,enteri t is) while the birds were being treated. The longerthe birds remained nnder treatment, the less their chanceof surviving and. of coltrse, even for the very few thatdid survive. the longer their period in captivi ty, the lesstheir chance of being successful ly reintegrated in awild populat ion.

It had never proved possible to clean oi led birds andreturn them to sea quickly because i t was universalexperience that whatever the method of cleaning. theplumage had lost i ts water-repel lent property and i fplaced on the water in this condit ion, the birds rapidlybecame waterlogged, losing their buoyancy and thermalinsulat ion. This condit ion persisted unti l the birds hadreplaced their plun.rage at the next molt and often eventhen i t was not ful ly water-repel lent. Rehabil i tat ion ofoi led seabirds could never succeed unless a treatmentcould be devised that restored the water-repel lent prop-ert ies of the feathers after the contaminating oi l hadbeen removed.

Very l i t t le was known about the water-repel lency offeathers at that t ime. There were two schools of thought,though with l i t t le experimental evider.rce for either:one, that i t was due to preen-gland waxes which arespread over the feathers during preening. the other thati t was due to the physical structure of the feathers.Research in the Un i t by Kennedy (1970a, b , 1971,1972) establ ished that the latter was of prime impor-tance. The system of interlocking barbs of feathers pro-vides a strongly water-repel lent surface, similar to thatin some texti les. and the system is arranged in such away that there is a gradient in water-repellency from

the base to the t ip of the feather so that a drop of waterplaced on i t tends to run olT towards the t ip. A mono-layer of preen-gland wax on the feather also resistswett ing, but i t is subservient to feather stmcture.

Although Larsson and Odham (1970) developed asynthetic preen-gland wax, Larodan 1,27, which theyclaimed restored the water-r 'epel lent propert ies of sea-bird plumage after cleaning, we thought i t unl ikely thatthese waxes were responsible for the wettable plumageof cleaned birds. Samples were examined of many oi ledbirds that were l iving in captivi ty or had died aftercleaning and in al l of them the feathers were contami-nated either by residual oi l , by traces of surface activccleaning agents. or by fecal material, I t was possible toclean oiled feathers, leaving them fully water-repellent,by using organic solvents in an ultrasonic bath and ithas proved almost impossible to remove the mono-layer of wax from the feathers by any normal cleaningmethod. We therefore disregarded preen-gland waxes insubsequent investigations.

It was, of course, not practicable to clean l iving birdsin ultrasonic baths, but with the development of a low-toxicity organic solvent by ICI, Arklone P, we wereable to clean oi led birds successful ly. The solvent leftno residues on the feathers and after drying the plum-age with a hair drier. the birds were able to swim with-out becoming wet (Clark and Gregory 1971). Organicsolvents suffer several disadvantages that make themunsuitable for general use. part icularly by amateurs.They are inf lammable and Arklone P vapor is stronglyanesthetic. They are not readi ly avai lable in an emer-gency and would therefore need to be stockpi led;furthermore they are expensive. Although Naviaux(1971) used organic solvents to clean oi led birds inCali fornia. we extended our search to other cleaningagellts.

The material that satisf ied the cri teria of effect iveness.safety, and ready avai labi l i ty was domestic washing-upl iquid detergent (RUROS 1972a). Used as a lo/o solu-t ion in water at 40"C, i t removed oi l effect ively and un-l ike many other detergents, i t does not adsorb stronglyonto feathers and can be r insed off completely withoutmuch dif f iculty. An addit ional advantage of r.rsing a hotsolut ion is that not only is the detergent more effect iveat this temperature, but the birds are not exposed tothermal shock. Once the birds have been dried, they areable to take to the water without the plumage wett ing.

Once the plumage has been adequately cleaned, seaducks and auks spend much of their t ime on the waterpreening. This evidently removes any f inal traces ofcontaminant from the feathers and access to clean wateris essential; otherwise the plumage becomes soi led withfecal material, result ing in a loss of water-repel lencyonce more. Many of the fai lures of rehabil i tat ing oi ledseabirds have apparently been due to the unsuitable con-dit ions in which the birds were maintained after theyhad been cleaned. These cleaning and rehabil i tat ionmethods were incorporated in a booklet (RUROS1972b) which had wide circulation. A number of ama-

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CLARK: OILED SEABIRD RESCUE AND CONSERVATION 677

teur naturalists subsequently used these methods suc-cessfully without further instruction or advice.

Operational Practice

Much of the basic screening of cleaning agents wascarried out in standardized tests on individual feathersand what at the t ime appeared to be the most satisfac-tory methods were used on the small number of oi ledbirds that were received by the Unit. Serious attempts toclean and rehabil i tate oi led birds were deferred unti l asatisfactory treatment had been devised and this wasthen used operational ly in a number of oi l pol lut ion in-cidents (RUROS 1973; Clark and Croxal l 1972).

In one such incident when oi led gui l lemots cameashore on the south Devon coast in January 7972 somewere treated local ly, but others. a group of 14 birds,were brought to Newcastle for treatment. The birdswere kept warm and fed at intervals of 4-5 h. The dayafter they had been collected from the beach they weretaken by road to Newcastle, a distance of about 700 km,rested for 2 d, and only then cleaned. One bird died aweek later, bLrt the remainder were transported back toDevon 2'1 d after they had been captured, Nine werereleased immediately and two others at a later date. Thetwo remaining birds were retained at an RSPCA centerin the southwest where they died a few weeks later.

In a second incident in the Firth of Forth in February1972, a large number of scaup (Aythya mari la) cameashore contaminated with a l ight fuel oi l . There were in-adequate faci l i t ies for keeping the birds during the weekin which they were coming ashore and being cleaned,and 50 birds of the 247 treated died. It was then possibleto transfer the survivors to the Edinburgh zoo where bet-ter facilities were available. Eighty-two more scaup.which were in poor condit ion. died there, but the re-mainder rapidly improved and the intention of r ingingthe survivors was frustrated because most of them flewoff in the course of the next week.

These experiences emphasized the futility of at-tempting to rehabil i tate oi led seabirds unless appropriatefaci l i t ies can be provided. These include shelter, warmth,and food for the birds immediately after capture, anabundant supply of hot water for cleaning the birds. andlarge pens with clean bathing water during recnperation,They cannot usually be provided without advancepreparation. although as numerous examples since theintroduction of these rnethods of treatment have shown,it is quite possible for the interested amateur to treatsuccessful ly small numbers of oi led birds.

Even a relat ively small quanti ty of oi l , however. maywell result in tens. hundreds. or even thousands of oi ledbirds coming ashore. Many may be beyond recovery.but numbers of this magnitude cannot be handled insmall or improvised centers. I f real ist ic rescue operationsare to be mounted in these circumstances, they requireextensive facilities, labor, and organization. Fortunately,as our experience has shown, oiled birds can be trans-ported long distances so that a permanent treatment

center, strategical ly placed, with appropriate faci l i t ies,good communications, and conveniently located for thevoluntebr help that would be needed in a crisis, canserve a considerable area of coast.

Fol lowing the oi l spi l lage in the Firth of Forth inFebruary 19'72 there was considerable interest amongScott ish animal wclfare organizations to establ ish a per-manent center to cover the f ir ths of Tay and Forth wherenumerous sea ducks winter. The development of theNorth Sea oil fleld was seen as placing the east coastof Scotland under greater threat of oi l pol lut ion thanbefore and i t was envisaged that a second center servingthe Moray Firth might be needed at a later stage. Butwith these two centers i t was l ikely that the high-r iskareas of the mainland Scott ish coast would be ade-quately covered. Two similar centers in southwest andsoutheast Englar.rd would serve the high-r isk parts of theEnglish coastl ine. By basing these centers on exist ingnature reserves or other faci l i t ies that already had aful l- t ime warden. the costs of establ ishing and runningthem would have been relat ivcly small .

In the event, some di l i iculty was experienced innegotiat ions for si tes in Scotland and. in the absence offurther oi l spi l ls at that t ime. intercst in the proposalevaporated. Subsequently one such center was estab-l ished by the RSPCA in the southwest of England nearTaunton. but this has not so far been very active.

Value of Rehabilitating Oiled Seabirds

Providing the birds are not too emaciated or i l l whenthey are rescued from the sea. or more commonly thebeach, and providing appropriate faci l i t ies exist forcleaning and rehabil i tat ing them. nrost wi l l recover andcan be returned to sea in a healthy conCit ion within 2 or3 wk. Unfortunately we know very l i t t le about their sub-sequent fate. Because of the general pol icy in Bri tainagainst r inging "sick" birds. few cleaned birds have beenringed before release. However. al l birds treated by theResearch Unit were r inged and although the numbersof these have been too small to provide a rel iable viewof the success of cleaning, the returns have been of somein terest.

Of 88 oi led gui l lemots cleaned and released in the 3 yr1972_-'74.7 were recovered dead within a week or two ofrelease and 1 bird was found al ive but in poor condit ionand probably did not survive. Rehabil i tat ion was clearlyunsuccessful in these cases. On the other hand, one birdcertainly traveled 800 km to northwest France after re-lease. two others were identified alive some 4 mo afterrelease, and one more appears to have integrated witha local breeding colony. One colour-ringed kittiwake(Rissa tr idactr lc) released by the Unit certainly joined anearby breeding colony. Although only 21 of the 114scaup that escaped from Edinburgh zoo after cleaningwere r inged. no dead scaup, r inged or unringed. werereported in the area during the weeks fol lowing theirescape. In view of the close watch that has been kept onBritish mainland coasts for dead and stranded birds and

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the rel iable return of r ings, there is a reasonable chancethat many of the birds that are not accounted for havesurv ived (RUI {OS 197 3 , 197 1 . 197 5) .

Whether or not this measure of success just i f ies clean-ing and rehabil i tat ing oi led seabirds and. in part icular,just i f ies sett ing up permancnt treatment centers. de-pends on the point of view that is taken.

From a conservation viewpoint. i t has general ly l i t t levalue. There is no point, for exarnple, in attempting toclean and rehabil i tate gul ls when their numbers are in-creasing rapidly in western Europe despite losses fromoil pol lut ion and when in several areas in Bri tain anattempt is being made to reduce gul l populat ions be-cause of the nuisance they consti tute. Although the re-ported decl ine in numbers of sea duck migrating throughScandinavia was attr ibuted to the effect of oi l pol lut ion(C lark 1969) . most spec ies have a h igh reproduc t ivepotential and recover rapidly from adult mortal i t ies.Eider colonies on the island of Kcikar were severely af-fected by oi l when the tanker Palt 'a rztn aground in Fin-nish waters in May 1969: 25-33c/c of the breedingpopulat ion was estimated to have been ki l led. yet in thefol lowing year the eider popr-r lat ion on Kdkar was ex-ceptional ly large (Lepprikoski 1973) and the oi l spi l lhad no long-term effect on them.

A number of boreal and subboreal soecies - auksand pengu ins in par t i cu la r - a re charac ter ized by grea tlongevity coupled with extremely low reproductive po-tential. Such birds are unable to restore quickly num-bers reduced by adult mortal i ty. Unhappily these species,through their gregarious and pelagic habits. are part icu-larly exposed to heavy losses through oi l pol lut ion. Theyrnust claim high priori ty in any conservation measuresthat are attempted. Rescue and cleaning of oi led birdscan make on ly a very smal l con t r ibu t ion to th is . A la rgeproport ion of oi led birds fai l to come ashore but die atsea, and of those reaching the shore many wil l be be-yond recovery by the t ime they are found. Many fac-tors inf luence this inescapable mortal i ty - weather.distance from shore of the oi l . accessibi l i ty of beaches.manpower - but in al l but exceptional ly favorable cir-cumstances i t is l ikely to represent the overwhelmingmajori ty of contaminated birds. Even i f cleaning andrehabil i tat ion are well organized and expert ly carr iedout, i t may be expected that only a tr i f l ing proport ion ofthe oi led birds can be rescned and returned to thenatural environment. Conservation cleariy demandsmore direct measLrres o1' dispersing oi l sl icks before theyreach sensit ive areas. exploring the possibi l i ty of scaringbirds from threatening oi l as Koski and Richardson(1976)) have done. or, potential ly most effect ive of al l .devising methods of improving the extraordinary lowreproductive success of these birds.

'This publication is a'railable free from the PetroleumAssociat ion for Conservat ion of the Canadian Environment,130 A lbe r t S t . , Su i t e 400 , O t t awa , Canada K1p 5G4 .

I t is conceivable that the rescue and cleaning of oi ledbirds would be just i f ied for a species that was exception-al ly rare and threatened with extinct ior.r, but in ger.rerali t can make a negligible contr ibution to seabird con-servation. Nevertheless. in a number of countr ies thereis strong public pressure to mount rescne operationswhen seabirds are oi led. The motive l 'or this may behumanitarian, evcn sentimental, and has l i t t le scienti l icbasis. but i t cannot be ignored because of this. At leasti f oi led birds are to be rescued and treated, we nowknow how it can be most effect iveiy and economical lydone.

Clrnr, R. B. 1969. Oil pol lut ion and the conservation ofseabilds. Ploc. Int. Conf. Oil Pol lut ion of the Sea,Rome, 1968. p .76 112.

Crenr, R. B., ,rNn J. P. CRoxALL. 1972. Rescue operationsfor oi led seabirds. Mar. Pol lut. Bul l . 3: 123-127.

Cr,rnx, R. B., euo K. G. Gnrconv. 1971. Feather-wett ingin c leaned b i rds . Mar . Po l lu t . Bu l l . 2 : 78-79 .

Crenr, R. B., .rNo R. J. KENNEDy. 1968. Rehabil i tat ion ofoi led seabirds. Dep. Zool., Univ. Newcastle upon Tyne,Newcastle upon Tyne. i i + 57 p.

1971. How oi led seabirds are cleaned. Dep. Zool.,Univ. Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne.48 p .

KrNNroy. R. J. 1970a. Di lect ional water-shedding propert ieso f fea thers . Natu le . London 227: 736-737.

1970b. Direct effects of rain on birds: a review.Br . B i rds 63 :401 414.

1971. Preen g land we igh ts . Ib is 113:369-372.1972. Factors determining the water-repel lency of

birds' feathers. Ph.D. Thesis. Dep. Zool., Univ. New-castle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne. 445 p.

Kosxr. W. R., eNo W. J. RrcHnnDsoN. 1976. Review ofwatelbird deterrent and dispersal systems for oi l spi l ls.Pet. Assoc. Conserv. Can. Environ., Ottawa, PACERep. No. 76-6 : 122 p .

LetssoN, K., euo G. Oon,rv. 1970. Larodan for cleaningo i led seab i rds . Mar . Po l lu t . Bu l l . 1 : 122-124.

Lsppixcrsxt, E. 1973. Effects of an oi l spi l l in the northernBa l t i c . Mar . Po l lu t . Bu l l . 1 : 93-94 .

N.rvtnux, J. L. 1971. After care of oi l covered birds. Natl .Wildl. Health Found., San Francisco, Cali f . 33 p.

RUROS (ResreRcu UNrr oN rnr, Rru.qrrr-rrerroN on OnsnSr , rn tnos) . 1972a. Second Annua l Repor t ( fo r 1971) .Dep. Zoo1., Univ. Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastleupon Tyne. 33 p.

1972b. Recommended treatment of oi led seabirds.Dep. Zool., Univ. Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastleupon Tyne. 10 p .

1973. Third Annual Report (for 1972). Dep. Zool.,Univ. Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne. 24 p.

1974. Four th Annua l Repor t ( fo r 1973) . Dep.Zool., Univ. Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle uponTyne.27 p.

1975. Fif th Annual Report (for 1974). Dep. Zool.,Univ. Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne.24 o .

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