Sea Alarm is pleased to introduce Paul Kelway as our new Global Preparedness Coordinator. Paul comes to Sea Alarm with a strong background in international oil spill response work.  As Emergency Relief Manager for International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW)’s Oiled Wildlife Division and then as Executive Director at International Bird Rescue (IBR), Paul has worked closely with many key organisations and individuals in the oiled wildlife response field.

Paul coordinated response efforts in Norway, France and Mexico and has responded to spills in Spain, South Africa and the United States. In addition to direct involvement in the coordination and management of international oil spill responses, Paul has been active in developing global response strategies and managing international partnerships.

As Global Preparedness Coordinator, Paul will be working in collaboration with leading international NGO’s to develop a worldwide infrastructure to support and enhance oiled wildlife preparedness and response. Presently based in California, Paul will move to Brussels in 2014.

The oiled wildlife responders group, which meets twice yearly, approved the content of a joint protocol/response manual for oiled bird rehabilitation, an important milestone in the development of a European standard for care of oil affected birds during a spill response. The document is now in the design process and is expected to be made available in the coming months.

Next steps for the group include developing similar cooperative guidelines for management of international oiled wildlife response within Europe where these organisations may be called on by local NGOs, oil companies or various authorities to aid in wildlife and creating training courses for hands-on wildlife responders.

WRCO’s new facility, which opened in 2010, is designed for oil spill response, allowing for fast conversion from general wildlife hospital to oiled wildlife care facility, as the need arises. Staff from WRCO has been active in oil spill response throughout Europe andWRCO is an active partner in setting up EU oiled wildlife responders group, which is developing protocols and guidance documents for the region.

They learned more about the current French oiled wildlife response and preparedness situation and discussed the potential for these facilities to be involved in Sea Alarm’s activities to advance oiled wildlife response in the region and in Europe. Sea Alarm is also collaborating with the CVFSE on the POSOW project.

Alca Torda Wildlife Recovery Centre, located near Bordeaux, was founded in the wake of the Erika and Prestige oil spills. In addition to oil spill response, Alca Torda cares for other wild animals affected by human activities.

Le Centre Vétérinaire de la Faune Sauvage et des Ecosystèmes (CVFSE) at Nantes Atlantic College of Veterinary Medicine, Food Science and Engineering (ONIRIS) was created in 1985 by veterinary students interested in wildlife medicine.  CVFSE also responded during the Erika and Prestige oil spills.

The Oiled Wildlife Response manual is designed for volunteers with little or no experience in oiled wildlife response. It provides guidance on appropriate first aid and stabilisation actions that may be taken until expert wildlife responders arrive on scene. It is one of a series of volunteer manuals being produced for oil spill response in the Mediterranean. In May, ‘train the trainer’ courses will be given in Brest, France for personnel likely to be involved in wildlife management during an oil spill.

The new manual can be downloaded from the POSOW website.

Saskia Sessions and Paul Kelway will be representing Sea Alarm at the 2013 SPILLCON in Cairns, Australia in April. They will share exhibition space with Oil Spill Response Ltd. (OSRL), showcasing Sea Alarm’s role in oiled wildlife response and explaining the services it can provide to the oil industry and authorities in Australia and Southeast Asia. At the conference the team will meet with area oiled wildlife response organisations for updates and discussions on collaborative efforts.

SPILLCON, the international oil spill conference for the Asia-Pacific Region, is one of the three main international oil spill response conferences. Interspill in Europe and the International Oil Spill Conference in the United States are held in a three-year alternating cycle with SPILLCON.

These cooperative agreements increase the effectiveness of all three organisations in preparing for, and responding to, oiled wildlife around the world.

A major part of Sea Alarm’s work is assisting coastal governments, NGOs and other agencies in preparedness for an oiled wildlife response. Regular meetings, trainings and exercises of response plans ensure on-going readiness to respond to wildlife threatened by oil spills.

EU oiled wildlife responder meetings in 2012

Collaboration among four key European oiled wildlife response groups RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), Wildlife Rescue Centre Ostend, ProBird and Sea Alarm-continued in 2012 with a series of meetings in Germany, Belgium and the UK.

The organisations, which have responded co-operatively to oiled wildlife incidents in Europe, met to discuss methods of strengthening their integrated response capability and sharing this knowledge with other European stakeholders. Sea Alarm has assisted RSPCA, Wildlife Rescue Centre Ostend and ProBird in developing a collaborative protocol for dealing with oiled birds in an incident, which is now finalised. and will be published in 2013.

In addition, procedures are being developed for mobilisation and operations of an international European team that be prepared to assist NGOs and Governments in dealing with an oil spill incident.  In 2013 the group will provide international training courses for interested organizations and individuals to help them better understand the protocols and how they are used in the face of an actual oiled wildlife response.

                                         Equipment check and readiness exercise

Sea Alarm, along with OSRL (Oil Spill Response Limited), RSPCA, Wildlife Rescue Centre Ostend and ProBird, held a one-day exercise to evaluate the state of the Hamburg based stockpile of equipment available for oiled wildlife response in Europe.

In order to keep the stockpile, donated to Sea Alarm by IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare), in readiness for response, the group checked and inventoried the equipment and supplies. The resulting information will be used to help determine a longer term management and maintenance plan for the equipment, in order to ensure it is always in readiness for an oiled wildlife response.

The equipment is stored in 23 aluminium boxes and includes a wide array of  instruments, consumables and systems that are critical for the set up of a wildlife rehabilitation facility. Sea Alarm’s goal is to ensure that this equipment is kept together, maintained well, and can be made available to governments and NGOs who need it in the response to an incident.

Sea Alarm assists with wildlife response exercise programme in the Netherlands

Rijkswaterstaat (NL) has contracted Sea Alarm to help implement the 2012–2016 exercise programme designed as part of the country’s 2009 Oiled Wildlife Response Plan (Samenwerkingsregeling Besmeurde Vogels). Sea Alarm is responsible for developing and organising notification and field mobilisation exercises,  table tops and one-to-one training exercises for key personnel.

The exercises are held with different frequencies (once every one, two or three years) in four different regions of the Netherlands. The first exercise was a combined table top and field exercise held in Zeeland province held in June 2012, and was attended by representatives from Rijkswaterstaat, Zeeland coastal municipalities and other regional stakeholders.

The field exercise was a search/collection and transport exercise and the table top simulated an oiled wildlife incident in the Westerscheldt, the busy shipping lane connecting the Harbour of Antwerp and the North Sea. Both clearly illustrated the need for pre-defined objective and strategies and demonstrated the advantage of a response plans that is agreed between all stakeholders.

In December another information day and table top exercise was held with the regional stakeholders in the province of North Holland. That table top simulated an incident on the North Sea affecting most of the Dutch sandy beach coasts, and highlighted the important role of local municipalities in the coordination of field activities, public safety and logistics.

            Baltic region oiled wildlife response preparedness meeting

A two-day workshop; organised by Sea Alarm, WWF Finland, WWF Poland and the Institute of Oceanography of the University of Gdansk, in partnership with HELCOM RESPONSE (the Helsinki Commission Response group), was attended by 32 participants representing all nine Baltic countries, some of whose attendance was sponsored by Sea Alarm and WWF Finland.

As part of the Oiled Wildlife Response and Preparedness Working Programme 2011-2014 approved by HELCOM RESPONSE, this workshop occurred immediately following HELCOM RESPONSE’s 15th meeting. The workshop revealed a wide array of objectives and response capabilities.

In Estonia, Finland and Sweden, NGOs and authorities are working together to improve oiled wildlife response preparedness. In Denmark and the state of Schleswig Holstein euthanasia is the principle response method and both places are prepared to implement it in the case of a spill. Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, the Russian Federation, and the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern have no wildlife response system in place.

Participants concluded that more international exchange between authorities and NGOs, as well has greater planning and preparedness in some countries would be of benefit to the Baltic region. A full report on the workshop, published by Sea Alarm and WWF can be downloaded here.

                    Sea Alarm at the BALEX Delta exercise in Finland

Two Sea Alarm staff attended the annual BALEX (Baltic Delta Exercise). Hugo Nijkamp was an invited oiled wildlife expert of the EU Civil Protection Team at the request of Finland, and Claude Velter as an experienced oiled wildlife responder.  The EU Civil Protection Team is a group of European experts, mobilised and coordinated by the Monitoring and Information Centre of the European Commission, which can be put together at the request of a country in the face of a natural disaster, such as fire, flood or earthquake or marine pollution incident.

This real time exercise is coordinated each year by a HELCOM Contracting Party to enhance the skills of personnel involved in offshore cleanup operations, communications and information distribution. The 2012 exercise reinforced the recent inclusion of shoreline cleanup and wildlife response in the Convention, providing preparedness exercises in these areas as an integral part of the HELCOM programme.

Sea Alarm is a partner in the launch of new oil spill preparedness website for the Mediterranean and in updating oiled wildlife guidelines to reflect knowledge gained over the last 10 years.

New Mediterranean oil spill preparedness website (POSOW) launched

The Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response Centre for the Mediterranean Sea (REMPEC), in partnership with  the Centre of Documentation, Research and Experimentation on Accidental Water Pollution (CEDRE), the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR) and the Institute for Environmental Protection and Research  (ISPRA) and Sea Alarm, has launched the Preparedness for Oil-Polluted Shoreline clean-up and Oiled Wildlife interventions (POSOW) website.

POSOW is an EU co-funded project working to develop train-the-trainer courses to be offered to convergent volunteers (individual members of the public with no previous experience who offer to assist with oil spill clean-up activities). Sea Alarm will develop the training course and manual for oiled wildlife response. Train the trainer courses for identified focal points in each country are scheduled to take place during May 2013. Manuals will be made available on the POSOW project website.

Other partners will create similar materials for volunteer management, shoreline assessment and shoreline clean-up. While the project, launched in 2012 and scheduled for completion at the end of 2013, is focused on making the courses available to countries in the Mediterranean region, the courses will have value for response programmes in other areas.

New IPIECA guidelines on good practice oiled wildlife response preparedness

Sea Alarm is part of a working group developing one of the guidelines in a new report series of the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA). The Guidelines on Oiled Wildlife Response Preparedness aim at identifying good practice in preparing for oiled wildlife response. The report, which takes into account insights gained and improved response methods that have evolved as a result of recent wildlife response experiences, will help to set a more modern standard for oiled wildlife response preparedness.

IPIECA initiated the Oil Spill Response-Joint Industry Project (OSR-JIP) to undertake these updates in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon incident in the US and the Montara incident in Australia to review operational aspects of offshore operations and operator ability to respond in the event of a spill or oil well blowout.

The guidelines will replace those presently found at the IPIECA website.

In 2012 Sea Alarm attended conferences in various countries, presenting on the organisation’s activities and learning about advances in oiled wildlife response around the world.

Sea Alarm is active at 2012 Effects of Oil on Wildlife (EOW)

Three staff members of Sea Alarm –Hugo Nijkamp, Saskia Sessions and Claude Velter– attended the 11th Annual Effects of Oil on Wildlife Conference, held in New Orleans, USA in January. This conference, held every other year, is the most important international conference for anyone involved in oiled wildlife response and preparedness.

In addition to giving multiple presentations, Sea Alarm sponsored a number of European colleagues who would otherwise not have been able to attend the conference. Hugo Nijkamp served on the Programme Committee.

Sea Alarm keeps oiled wildlife in the picture at Interspill

Sea Alarm once again took advantage of the unique opportunity to advocate for including wildlife response at Interspill, the European oil spill conference held every three years (The US hosted International Oil Spill Conference and SpillCon in Australia are held in the intervening years).

In 2012, in cooperation with International Bird Rescue (IBR), South Africa’s SANCCOB,  and California’s Oiled Wildlife Care Network (OWCN), Sea Alarm provided a training course in ‘Wildlife Response’ prior to the main conference.

Staff also manned a booth, shared with Oil Spill Response Limited (OSRL) on the exposition floor and Saskia Sessions presented a joint paper with Curt Clumpner of IBR on “Reasonable Oiled Wildlife Response’ at this important conference for oil spill response and preparedness.

 Brainstorming session at Interspill leads to global oiled wildlife response workshop

A lunch meeting at Interspill, organised by Sea Alarm and OSRL, brought representatives from the International Marine Organisation (IMO), the International Tanker Owners Federation (ITOPF), the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (IOPC Fund), SANCCOB, IBR, OWCN and several oil companies together to talk about the need for advancing global wildlife response preparedness. Attendees indicated widespread support for a joint effort to increase the level of professionalism in oiled wildlife response.

Sea Alarm and OSRL organised a follow-up workshop, attended by OWCN, IBR, IOPC Fund and ITOPF, to develop a professional global response system for oil spill incidents involving wildlife. A proposed terms of reference for creating this global system, based on the results of the workshop, was presented to the initial lunch meeting attendees in early 2013,  and based on the positive feedback received, a more detailed approach for implementation is currently under discussion.

Oilapalooza presentation highlights Sea Alarm’s work in Europe

Saskia Sessions presented an overview of Sea Alarm’s work in wildlife response in Europe to the Oiled Wildlife Care Network (OWCN) at their annual Oilapalooza conference. The OWCN is a California state collective established by the Department of Fish and Game’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response in 1994. Funded by the state to provide wildlife response services throughout California, its more than 30 member organisations are coordinated by the UC Davis Wildlife Health Center.

Ms Sessions brought back information on state of the art hazing and deterrence methods and insights into how this collaborative network coordinates the activities of multiple centres in an oil spill and develops responder expertise through online and hands–on training programmes.

Arctic Oil Spill Conference invites Sea Alarm wildlife presentation

Hugo Nijkamp made a presentation at the Oil Spill and Ice Management in Arctic Operations conference. At the conference, held in the Netherlands, Mr. Nijkamp spoke on the unique challenges of managing an oiled wildlife response under Arctic conditions, where severe weather plays an important role in the ability to quickly rescue wildlife and the often remote locations restrict the ability to set up care facilities.