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Not only did the Exxon Valdez disaster garner the attention of environmentalists worldwide, it reignited an ongoing debate over whether the benefits of wildlife rehabilitation justify the costs. Although the costs of capturing and treating oiled animals is legally borne by the responsible party under state and federal laws, the bill often runs into hundreds of thousands of dollars. Conservation biologists argue that rehabilitation efforts aren't worth the high costs if the affected animals don't live long enough to successfully contribute to their population. "Controversy arises when people equate rehabilitation with restoration," says Dan Anderson, a professor of wildlife, fish and conservation biology at UC Davis. "I don't think rehabilitation serves as a real restoration technique without protecting the habitat, food sources and nesting colonies." Anderson tracked the success of California brown pelicans that were cared for and released after oil spills in 1990 and 1991. Two years after the first spill, only eight of 91 re- This study and others lead Anderson to believe that rehabilitation techniques have not been effective in returning to the wild healthy birds that are then capable of reproducing and contributing to the overall success of the population. But he isn't ready to give up on individual animals affected by spills. "From a moral basis, you have to try--you can't let the animals lie out there," he says. "Either kill them or go out and do something for them; you can't turn your head the other way and ignore the problem." Anderson argues that rehabilitation efforts should be concentrated on the most ecologically valuable species--sea otters, pelicans, marbled murrelets and Steller sea lions--those on the threatened or endangered species lists. But if a crew of volunteers and veterinarians can learn rescue and rehabilitation techniques regardless of which birds or animals are affected, Anderson and Mazet agree that experience can be a valuable lesson that can be applied to the care of more sensitive species. *
"Oil isn't the greatest threat to sea otters," he says. "Disease, habitat contamination and, most importantly, fishing gear entrapment are larger concerns in California." Estes is critical of the course of action taken by the state and federal governments to build a spill response network that he says doesn't intersect closely with coastal marine conservation. The approximately $12 million spent by the prevention and response office to build facilities to care for oiled wildlife in California could be better spent on acquiring strategi-cally placed habitats and addressing the concerns of over-fishing, Estes says. "There is a whole culture of policy, science and public sentiment that has evolved around oil in the past few years," Estes says. "I don't want to imply that oil isn't something to worry about, but other issues concerning marine population health aren't paid enough attention," he says. However, he acknowledges the practical constraints on using the earmarked rehabilitation money for conservation. Funding for the care network came from a pool collected from the oil industry, specifically for the construction of facilities and the care of oiled wildlife. Proponents of oiled wildlife rehabilitation stress that their activities are not aimed solely at rescue and treatment of oiled animals, but that the money used to create wildlife facilities in California also benefits conservation efforts. "Thankfully, the facilities being constructed by the network are designed to be used for public education and marine conservation research during times other than oil spills," Mazet says. According to Jessup, approximately $9 million (of the $12 million to construct facilities) has gone to cooperating universities in California. "This is a case of wildlife rehabilitation supporting wildlife conservation," Jessup says. He points out that less than 8 percent of the Office of Spill Prevention and Response budget goes to rehabilitation efforts; the rest goes toward prevention and other response activities. "But when the network is called out, obviously prevention has failed," Jessup says. "We still need this program after the prevention and response office has done its best." Jessup also points to the role the network plays in educating the public about conservation issues. Volunteers are willing to donate thousands of hours to rescue and rehabilitation activities, he says; "This program serves to feed not only a biological need, but a social one as well." * Scott Newman was stuck in Alaska without any money, thousands of miles away from Tufts Veterinary School in Massachusetts where he was enrolled as a second-year veterinary student. He had taken a leave and gone to Point Barrow a few months earlier to work on a bowhead whale census and travel through the state. Flat broke, he took a job cutting salmon at the local cannery in Seward near Prince William Sound in early 1989. One day in May when Newman showed up for work the cannery was closed--due to oiled fish. He walked out of the building and saw a large sign that said Bird Rehab with an arrow pointing toward a pale green warehouse around the other side of the bay. Newman had stumbled across the Exxon Valdez oiled bird rehabilitation facility. He volunteered that first day and was asked to stay and help with rehabilitation efforts for the next few months. Throughout the rescue operation, though, Newman remained troubled by one thing. "We were releasing these birds and saying they're healthy, but I was always questioning: How do we know?" Newman says. "I could have cancer today and may look extremely healthy in the beginning stages, but I may have something internally going wrong. "Thousands of seabirds were being sent out to the wild without full evaluations because there were no baseline data available to determine whether or not they were normal," Newman says. "We were dealing with many species that are on land only two to four months a year while breeding. The rest of their lives are spent out at sea, so nobody has the opportunity to handle them and get blood-related health parameters." Newman's experience in Alaska helped propel him back to vet school with his course set. The following summer he returned to Alaska to take blood samples from seabirds for the beginning of a database. Often blood tests are used to diagnose less obvious physiological problems by providing information on, for example, blood sugar levels and liver or kidney function. After graduating from vet school and completing an internship, Newman applied for research money to continue the seabird baseline health blood project in California. He went to work with the Department of Fish and Game's prevention and response office where he worked with Jessup and Mazet, responding to oil spills along the coast and performing research. Newman says he understands the perspective of conservation biologists like Anderson and Estes. "In many ways we are striving for the same goal--population health," he says. "All my other research is related to looking at and evaluating the health of different marine bird populations, so obviously that's where much of my focus is." Baseline studies funded by the Oiled Wildlife Care Network that assess patterns of normal health and behavior for various marine birds and mammals are crucial to judging the success of rehabilitation efforts, Newman says. Post-release studies that track individuals after treatment are also helpful but are in short supply. Some studies done before the evolution of an organized network to deal with oiled animals show that released animals had poor survival rates. But Newman notes that more recent follow-up studies of Western gulls and penguins are showing positive results with long-term survival. "As we do more rehabilitation and as we learn more, we're going to make advances that will then allow us to show that animals are surviving for longer periods of time," Newman says. "Ultimately, the hope is that some of these species return to breeding or at least are involved in social attraction for other birds that would then go on to breed." * Last December, Newman was driving home relaxed after a weekend of snowboarding in the Sierra Nevada, when his pager went off. It was Mazet. An estimated 100 to 200 gallons of waste oil had spilled or been dumped illegally into the Bolsa Chica wetlands in Southern California where thousands of migratory birds stop to feed on insects and worms crawling through the mud flats. The spot has been likened to a "McDonald's along the 101" for these birds. As the newly hired response veterinarian for the network, Newman got home, repacked his duffel bag with jeans, T-shirts and scrub tops and was headed out on a plane by midnight. By 6 a.m. the next day, Coast Guard, Fish and Game and network response personnel had assembled to start assessing the damage and collecting oiled animals. "There's a low level of chaos at the beginning of every spill response," Newman says. "You don't know how much oil was spilled, how much time has passed, what resources will be needed and the species of animals affected." But being prepared really helps. "With the network we have a mechanism to get things done, we know where birds can be brought for treatment, and we have trained people available to help," he says. Volunteers began bringing in the victims--egrets, ducks, grebes, coots and a night heron--some already too weak to survive. Although the amount of oil spilled into the channel seems infinitesimal compared to the 11 million gallons spilled by the Exxon Valdez, that small amount was concentrated in a sensitive area. "A small amount of oil in sensitive habitats can severely impact the wildlife and the environment, sometimes even more so than a huge ship breaking up out at sea," Mazet says. "In a place like Southern California, where all the wildlife are forced to congregate in small areas, you're going to have higher numbers of animals affected relative to the volume that was actually spilled." * Thousands of spills occur every year, not including chronic sources of pollution and small incidents like people dumping crankcase oil down a storm drain. It is estimated that the annual amount of oil that flows into the ocean from storm drains and other runoff is 22 times the Exxon Valdez spill. "All of us who drive our cars and want to have the conveniences of modern lives and mobile lifestyles need to take some responsibility," Mazet says. "If we didn't need gasoline, there wouldn't be tankers and there wouldn't be pipelines, so I think we have to consider our own actions and recognize that they have an impact on the environment as well. Conservation education and awareness can help preserve the environment for wildlife and our children." * Trina Wood is a 1996 UC Davis graduate who recently received her master's degree in journalism from UC Berkeley. She is currently a free-lance writer in Davis. |
Much of California's financial investment in oil spill prevention and response has risen out of concern for the declining southern sea otter population. However, focusing on oil as the primary threat to these animals is a huge mistake, says Jim Estes, a wildlife research biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and an adjunct professor of biological and marine sciences at UC Santa Cruz.