As part of a multi-year contract with Rijkswaterstaat, Sea Alarm designed, prepared and facilitated a two-day exercise event, held in October 2013 in ‘s-Gravezande, the Netherlands, which included three field and two table-top exercises.
In Ireland, Sea Alarm has provided support on oiled wildlife response planning to the Shannon Estuary oil spill response authority .
Sea Alarm has been asked to assist the States of Guernsey in reviewing and updating their arrangements for oiled wildlife preparedness and response. As part of the process, an oiled wildlife preparedness training event and stakeholder meeting was held in mid-September in conjunction with an Oil Spill Response (OSRL) shoreline cleanup training course.
In March Wildtierstation Hamburg hosted the European Oiled Wildlife Responders’ meeting, which was attended by Sea Alarm, the RSPCA, ProBird and Wildlife Rescue Centre Ostend. A highlight of the meeting was a tour of the new rehabilitation facility outside of Hamburg, which Wildtierstation Hamburg is in the process of refurbishing.
As part of Sea Alarm’s ongoing efforts to enhance collaborative, professional oiled wildlife response, an MOU with Belgium’s Wildlife Rescue Centre Ostend (WRCO) was signed in January. Sea Alarm and WRCO have a long history of working together on preparedness and active response since they first met in the aftermath of the Tricolor oil spill in 2002.
In March, Sea Alarm (Saskia Sessions, Claude Velter) visited two French wildlife rehabilitation centres, Alca Torda Wildlife Recovery Centre and the Wildlife Care Centre (Le Centre Vétérinaire de la Faune Sauvage et des Ecosystèmes (CVFSE)) at Nantes Atlantic College of Veterinary Medicine, Food Science and Engineering (ONIRIS) to discuss oiled wildlife response in France.
Sea Alarm signed important Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with two internationally recognised oiled wildlife preparedness and response groups, Focus Wildlife and the South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB).
These cooperative agreements increase the effectiveness of all three organisations in preparing for, and responding to, oiled wildlife around the world.
Sea Alarm recently has started work on a five year contract with Rijkswaterstaat, the Netherlands, to assist with the coordination, development and management of an exercise programme on oiled wildlife response and preparedness in the Netherlands.
Oiled wildlife response had a high profile at the 2011 International Oil Spill Conference (IOSC) in Portland, as for the first time in the event’s history it had a dedicated wildlife session, chaired by Hugo Nijkamp. Sea Alarm also exhibited at the event.
Making the most of the fact that many of the leading oiled wildlife response groups were scheduled to attend the IOSC in Portland, Sea Alarm took the opportunity to organise a dedicated meeting of these organisations back to back with the Conference.
In early November 2011, Sea Alarm facilitated a one day volunteer awareness event in Limerick, Ireland, in cooperation with the Shannon Port Authority and the Irish Seal Sanctuary. The event aimed at providing background information to a group of 25 selected volunteers from the Shannon Estuary area who had expressed an interest in assisting with a future oiled wildlife incident.
Hugo Nijkamp and Saskia Sessions travelled to the RSPCA’s Headquarters in West Sussex, UK for a meeting in November last year.