Oiled birds may be a fraction of the total toll on birds from Gulf oil spill

May 2010. As bird rescue groups prepare to deal with hundreds or potentially thousands of oiled birds resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf, American Bird Conservancy President George Fenwick has cautioned that the toll from the spill may be far greater when the unseen impacts are factored into the environmental disaster still ongoing in the Gulf of Mexico.

"While the weather is restricting rescue efforts, I know that rescue groups are prepared to do everything humanly possible to capture and save as many oiled birds as they can find, but there are problems well beyond our abilities to mitigate or even count. In addition to the potential catastrophic losses to shorebirds that we know to be at risk on their breeding grounds and in the wetlands around the gulf, the oil spill poses a serious threat to seabirds," Fenwick said.

Many birds will die unseen
"Many will likely die unseen far out in the Gulf. For instance, in the Exxon Valdez spill, it was estimated that assistance and rescue staff only saw about one of every ten birds affected. Luckily, in this case, most of the adult gannets have already headed north to their breeding grounds, so the juveniles are the ones that are likely to get affected in the Gulf right now. In addition to these plunge-diving birds, surface foragers such as terns and gulls that alight on the water are vulnerable, particularly this time of year," he said.

"Further, what is difficult to measure is the loss of future generations of birds when birds fail to lay eggs or when eggs fail to hatch. Many of the birds are incubating eggs right now, and we know that even small amounts of oil on the parent's feathers will kill the young," he said.

"And bird prey bases are also impacted. The very fisheries that sustain the economy of the region also sustain the seabirds along the coast. The impacts to fish stocks may have substantial, long-lasting effects on seabird," he said.