Collected species include murres, oldsquaw ducks, harlequin ducks, glaucous-winged gulls, cormorants, common loon, murrelets and grebes. "Numerous lightly-oiled gulls are frequently seen in the Dutch Harbor area, and oiled eagles have also been observed as well," said Catherine Berg, oil spill wildlife response coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We are shipping oiled birds that we are able to capture to a bird rehabilitation center in Homer for treatment.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game developed a wildlife recovery plan to address the bird impacts. Wildlife Rapid Response Team (WRRT) from Homer, Alaska, has been hired by Alaska Chadux Corporation, the responsible partys clean up coordinator, to implement the recovery plan. One of the priorities of the plan is to haze birds from the contaminated area and to retrieve oiled carcasses. "These two activities are specifically aimed at preventing further potential impacts to unoiled birds," Berg said.
WRRT have also conducted extensive surveys of the shoreline throughout the oil impact zone and the Dutch Harbor vicinity, searching for and rescuing live oiled birds in obvious distress.
According to Berg, observers have seen sea otters in the Dutch Harbor vicinity, but none to date have been seen exhibiting symptoms of oiling. Wildlife staff are closely monitoring the sea otters. According to the National Marine Fisheries Service no seals have been oiled.
"At this point, were monitoring the situation, rescuing the animals that were able to capture and collecting oiled carcasses," Berg said. "We consider the impact to birds to be fairly low so far."
-FWS-
