On October 6, Sea Alarm hosted a half day training session for a German oil spill expert at its headquarters in Brussels. The expert, Rudolf Gade, who is Head of Unit for surface and coastal water affairs in the federal state of Lower Saxony, was participating in the European Maritime Safety Agency’s (EMSA) EMPOLLEX exchange programme and had indicated an interest in wildlife response.
In the early hours of 8 October, a chemical tanker YM Uranus collided with a bulk tanker some 100km southwest of the island of Ouessant, off the Brittany coast. At the time of the incident, in addition to an unreported amount of bunker fuel, the Uranus was carrying a cargo of 6000 tonnes of pygas solvent, a type of heavy gasoline. Although a lighter type of oil (and therefore less persistent once spilled), this type of product can still pose a risk to seabirds through interfering with feather waterproofing and causing skin burns or irritation.
Following an earlier discussion in 2009, Benoit Loicq from the European Community Shipowners Association (ECSA) visited the Sea Alarm offices in Brussels last September. The aim of this meeting was for both organisations to present their activities and look at areas of common interest. Mr Loicq explained the setup and programme of ECSA, which is an international association made up of the national shipowner associations in each EU Member State. ECSA works to promote and represent European shipping interests though specialised committees, including an Environment and Safety Committee.
From 14-17 September an international seminar and workshop were held in Estonia as part of the ENSACO project. This project focuses on the cooperation between Estonia, Finland and Sweden in the areas of shoreline cleanup and wildlife response. Sea Alarm was invited to the event and assisted with the international seminar and a volunteer training on oiled wildlife response.
After a long period of quiet, the issue of oiled wildlife response planning became active again in Ireland. This followed on from a letter by the Irish Coast Guard to all 20 coastal Counties with a request to send in their shoreline response plan. Already a few years ago the Coast Guard had requested the Counties to develop such a plan according to a standard format. In that format there was also a paragraph on integrated oiled wildlife response planning.
Sea Alarm’s Saskia Sessions made a presentation during a training course on oiled wildlife rehabilitation in Ankara, Turkey on 3-7 May. This training was for wildlife rehabilitators, scientists, veterinarians and environmental NGOs on techniques and key considerations for hands-on rehabilitation of oiled wildlife. The training course was hosted by BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) pipeline company, as part of their ongoing efforts to improve preparedness for an oil spill from the pipeline.
In April Sea Alarm sadly had to say goodbye to Roser Gasol. Roser had been working for Sea Alarm since February 2006 and has been significantly contributing to the many achievements the organisation had in that four year period.
Sea Alarm was invited by the ProBird group in Germany to attend and lecture on a volunteer course they were organising last April. The course took place in Rastede, in one of the wildlife rescue and rehabilitation centres in the North of Germany, and was attended by ca 20 new volunteers.
Saskia Sessions was invited to the recent ENSACO workshop that took place on 13-14 April in Helsinki, Finland. She was requested to lecture on integrated oiled wildlife response and planning and moderate a Sea Alarm table top exercise on wildlife response planning processes.
Leading US wildlife response groups have been mobilised to the Gulf of Mexico to help local responders deal with oiled wildlife following the oil spill from the Deepwater horizon drilling rig, which sank following an explosion and fire on 20 April.
The OWCN is currently seeking research proposals from wildlife professionals interested in furthering OWCN goals for the 2010-2011 funding period. In particular, proposals investigating the direct and indirect effects of oil on wildlife, baseline biomedical studies and improvements to oiled rehabilitation techniques are strongly encouraged.
The Bonn Agreement Secretariat has sent a questionnaire to all the Contracting Parties of the Agreement in order to collect information on current practices with regards to oiled wildlife response and preparedness. This was an action that was agreed in last year’s meeting of OTSOPA, the technical working group of the Agreement.