Expert Recommends Killing Oil-Soaked Birds

[girl gone mad]

According to wildlife experts, the vast majority of contaminated birds will die a painful death within 7 days of being cleaned. The damage is already done and cleaning them only contributes to their stress. :(

Expert Recommends Killing Oil-Soaked Birds

A German biologist says that efforts to clean oil-drenched birds in the Gulf of Mexico are in vain. For the birds' sake, it would be faster and less painful if animal-rescue workers put them under, she says. Studies and other experts back her up.

"Kill, don't clean," is the recommendation of a German animal biologist, who this week said that massive efforts to clean oil-soaked birds in Gulf of Mexico won't do much to stop a near certain and painful death for the creatures.

Despite the short-term success in cleaning the birds and releasing them back into the wild, few, if any, have a chance of surviving, says Silvia Gaus, a biologist at the Wattenmeer National Park along the North Sea in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.

"According to serious studies, the middle-term survival rate of oil-soaked birds is under 1 percent," Gaus says. "We, therefore, oppose cleaning birds."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,693359,00.html

[rpannier]

1. I see nothing in the article that says she's there

Until she's been there and done a first hand examination, I'll go with the people on the ground.

I realize that she has worked worked with birds involved in environmental disasters before but that still does not mean she is correct in this instance if she's not been there to assess first hand

[HereSince1628]

2. A link you and others could read... about petroleum poisoning

http://www.ccwhc.ca/wildlife_health_topics/oil.htm

[rpannier]

3. Thank you for the link

I always appreciate new and relevant info to read

Thanks again

[nc4bo]

5. Such horrible damage to wildlife, our environment and ourselves simply because

of our dependency on this filthy dirty fuel.

Makes you wonder why it's taking us so long to find alternatives and USE them!

:cry:

[northzax]

8. So...sold your car yet?

Do you have a picture of an oil drenched bird on your dashboard, to remind you of the price of starting it? I haven't paid a dime directly to an oil company in five years. AnD it feels great. Sure, I pay indirectly, from deliveries and the like, but I haven't been to a gas station in five years.

I know, I know. Everyone needs their car. I get it. But it's suprising how quickly you adjust to not having one.

[UpInArms]

9. have you given up food yet?

do you realize how petroleum product driven our food supply truly is? how much it takes to plant, harvest, transport, process, transport and get that shiny plastic film over the beef you eat or the celery you consume.

how holier-than-thou can one get as to presume it is just a car - it's the jets in the sky, or the dirty coal or the diesel engine on the railroad track that is bringing your mail, your food, your clothing -

oh, I forgot to ask if you are giving up clothing also - that cotton shirt - mmm.... you see how such a thing can be grown, woven, made, shipped and there it is! voila in a store near you.

...sigh...

edtied to add - I apologize for the tone of this post - it is just that there is such a long way to go to get this country - this world - off oil ... I wish it were so easy as 1 car at a time.

[nc4bo]

10. How about this one...

IF there were an AFFORDABLE alternative fuel vehicle that I and EVERY American could afford to either pay cash for or really cheap payments on - if you can get the credit that is, than I would be the first in line to get one.

Make those vehicles so cheap that they could be given them away.

~or~

Perhaps if there were a huge effort to provide public transportation for even the most rural America than I could. But we don't so I can not.

Because owning a horse or a mule requires the ability and the money to take care of and bicycles and mopeds can only take you so far realistically.

How's them apples?

America could do it but we don't even try ~or~ we don't try hard enough.

Guess it would be considered to be Socialism on a massive scale. Can't have that can we?

[defendandprotect]

16. Government should have been subsidizing electric cars decades ago . . .

and the infrastructure to support them -- as they did with the gas-guzzler--!!

Many towns still don't have environmental panels -- and even when they are discussed,

it is obvious that the pressure is to keep things as they are -- build parking decks!!

It's insane --

We could have had trolleys and more extended mass transportation decades ago --

the interests of the elites prevail, however -- "Pay to play" --

[theHandpuppet]

17. Just curious

Just where do you live and how do you get around? I suspect for you at least, other options are available.

[northzax]

19. i live in a city

i walk to work, to the grocery store. if I need to go somewhere else, I take the bus or the train. Do I need to live in the City? not really. could I have a much larger, more luxurious home if I didn't? sure. for what I pay for my condo in DC, I could have a nice several bedroom house with a backyard thirty miles away. but I don't want to drive to work, I don't want to drive to get a cup of coffee, I don't want to drive to dinner. what you can't have is the big house with a yard and a pool AND good public transportation, unless you have a lot of money (and I don't, really) these are the choices I have made, to reduce my carbon footprint and my impact on the planet. your mileage may vary.

[Junkdrawer]

4. Is there something different about THIS oil?

Aren't we just trying to assuage our guilt by "saving" the birds?

[HereSince1628]

11. Apparently oil comes with varied chemistry...

although it's all poisonous, some of it has more 'benzene' rings and is more aromatic, etc. Consequently, although in general being coated in oil, eating oil and breathing fumes are harmful, some of it is more harmful than others.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

6. a vast majority?

everything I have read and heard says they have an 80% success rate

[enough]

7. A little more detail from the article:

snip>

Birds Will Eventually Perish from Long-Term Causes

Catching and cleaning oil-soaked birds oftentimes leads to fatal amounts of stress for the animals, Gaus says. Furthermore, forcing the birds to ingest coal solutions -- or Pepto Bismol, as animal-rescue workers are doing along the Gulf Coast -- in an attempt to prevent the poisonous effects of the oil is ineffective, Gaus says. The birds will eventually perish anyway from kidney and liver damage.

snip>

Once covered in oil, a bird will use its bill and tongue to remove the toxic substance from their feathers. Despite oil's terrible taste and smell, a bird will still try and clean itself because it can't live without fluffy feathers that repel water and regulate its body temperature. "Their instinct to clean is greater than their instinct to hunt, and as long as their feathers are dirty with oil, they won't eat," Gaus says.

snip>

Even dyed-in-the-wool preservationists from the WWF agree with Gaus. At the time of the 2002 Prestige oil spill off the coast of Spain, a spokesman from the organization said: "Birds, those that have been covered in oil and can still be caught, can no longer be helped. … Therefore, the World Wildlife Fund is very reluctant to recommend cleaning."

The Prestige spill killed 250,000 birds. Of the thousands that were cleaned, most died within a few days, and only 600 lived and were able to be released into the wild. According to a British study of the spill, the median lifespan of a bird that was cleaned and released was only seven days.

[defendandprotect]

18. We have to stop "Manifest Destiny" and "Man's Dominion Over Nature" --

which are basically a war on nature -- extreme exploitation --

These are the teachings of organized patriarchal religions which underpin patriarchy . . .

and its system of Capitalism.

And these are all SUICIDAL concepts -- !!!

[KittyWampus]

12. Recommend with a heavy heart.

[drm604]

13. Sadly it sounds as if the volunteers' efforts could be better spent on other aspects of the cleanup.

If this article is correct then cleaning the birds is a waste of resources and volunteers that could be put to better use.

[northernlights]

14. I've wondered about this

I've had exotics in my living room for almost 20 years now. It seems unless you get them before they've ingested the oil, it's too late. I also wonder where they can safely release them, now that their home turf has been ruined. Euthanasia may be best for them.... :cry: :cry: :cry:

[defendandprotect]

15. I've seen a lot of articles about cleaning these birds -- presumed they survive?????

This is terrible -- it is all so terrible --

[northernlights]

21. most do not....the question is how many survive

versus how many suffer horribly before dying.

And where do you release those that do survive?

Cleaning them eases our own sense of helplessness and hopelessness. But does it really help the birds? Who knows? I sure don't...:cry: :cry: :cry:

[Ganja Ninja]

20. Even after you clean them what are you going to do with them?

You can't very well turn them loose. They have no place to go.

[SoCalDem]

22. They ingest large amounts of oil while preening & trying to clean themselves

just washing the surface oil off does not necessarily prolong their lives.. The oil they ingest damages their internal organs.

there is no way of knowing how long a bird has been trying to clean itself, when it's "rescued".

I know it's infuriating to see an injured animal and the natural impulse it to help it, but I can see how it's a pretty futile exercise sometimes:(

[defendandprotect]

23. Exploitation of nature finally leads to even more exploitation of nature . . .

"We had to burn the village to save it" -- !!!

Now, after so much patriarchal/capitalistic abuse of nature, we have to do what is

reasonable to prevent suffering of animals by destroying them.

We have to stop all of patriarchy's exploitations of nature, natural resources, animal-life --

and even other human being. It's suicidal --

and if we don't stop them, in the end we all all forced to join them in the ultimate destruction!!




This weekend, here in NJ we had some very high winds. In our area, a few years ago, we had one

young teenaged girl killed at the highschool when teachers let them out on another very high wind

day and a limb fell. The other day, part of a tree came down on a main road -- don't think

anyone was hurt, but when you start looking at the many old trees lining our streets, you

start to wonder if soon we're going to be dismantling trees in order to save ourselves!!