General

Sea Alarm would like to wish all its readers a merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Sea Alarm is delighted to have been named recently as a beneficiary of the Eight up fund-raising initiative. This is the brainchild of maritime lawyer Colin de la Rue, who this year has taken a Sabbatical from his partnership at law firm Ince & Co to climb 8 mountain peaks around the world in aid of 8 charitable causes.

Although it has been operational for more than 1.5 years, on 23 October the Wildlife Rescue Centre Ostend was formally opened by Prince Laurent of Belgium and the City of Ostende. Sea Alarm was also invited and presented its booth at the opening.

As part of an internal project that had started already in 2009, Sea Alarm has been working to develop a total remake of the existing www.oiledwildlife.eu. A new design was developed and some exciting facilities were added. The website now looks totally different and will have many surprises for those of you who frequently visited the old version.

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.

Since EMPOWER membership was opened in November 2009, applications to join the network are starting to roll into Sea Alarm’s mailbox.

On Wednesday 18 November membership was officially opened for the EMPOWER Network. After almost 6 months of preparation the Network is now ready to expand beyond the 9 Founding Members. It is expected that in the end over 70 members from across Europe will have joined the network, which aims to improve the professionalism and capacity of NGOs in their responses to marine wildlife emergencies and cooperation with their national authorities. Membership of EMPOWER is free of charge and only requires the signing of a Code of Conduct and the submission of information on the applicant.

As a newcomer to the European scheme of Operational Grants to NGOs, Sea Alarm was recently audited in late October by a UK based team which was sent by the European Commission to check Sea Alarm’s financial and administrative structure. This is a standard procedure which provides essential information both to the Commission and the beneficiary of the grant if the internal procedure and structures comply with the standards set by the Commission. After three days of studying Sea Alarm’s administration and interviewing the staff, the auditors came to a positive end conclusion.

Sea Alarm recently moved into a new office. Located in the same building as the previous office, the new office is much larger and looks directly out onto the Place du Beguinage, one of the nicest little squares in the…

In an insightful podcast interview, Jay Holcomb, the Executive Director of the International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBRRC), gives a touching account of his involvement in the six-month long response effort in the wake of the Exxon Valdez disaster, which occurred on 24^th March 1989 and ultimately killed more than 300,000 seabirds.