12th Effects of Oil on Wildlife conference held in Alaska

International Bird Rescue Rescue and Aiuká co-hosted the 2015 Effects of Oil on Wildlife (EOW) conference in May. This 12th EOW, held in Alaska, was originally planned to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.

Since 1982 EOW has been the primary conference for those involved in oiled wildlife response and preparedness. The 2015 meeting covered a variety of topics from issues specific to response in the Polar Regions to measuring the physiological impact of oil on wildlife to evaluating a variety of methods for safely removing oil and other hazardous substances from wildlife.

Sea Alarm actively participated in the 12th EOW on many levels. Hugo Nijkamp served on the Program Committee. Paul Kelway co-presented a half-day workshop on the new IPIECA Good Practice Guide: Wildlife Response Preparedness in collaboration with Sam Christie from Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research, Inc. and Curt Clumpner of International Bird Rescue.

Paul also presented a Sea Alarm paper on the impact of international developments by government and industry on wildlife response preparedness. He chaired a Case Studies session and a Roundtable session on Developing Tier 1 Wildlife Response Capability.

Claude Velter (Wildlife Rescue Centre Ostend) gave a joint WRCO/Sea Alarm paper on the recent, highly successful two-day national oiled wildlife drill in the Netherlands and presented a poster: The Development and Use of Dummies for Oiled Wildlife Response Exercises.

Sea Alarm’s contributions will be available in the Conference Proceedings, scheduled to be published in September.