European Oiled Wildlife Response Expert meeting and exercises in Germany

A very productive three-day meeting of representatives from leading European wildlife response organisations included review of the response management guidelines that Sea Alarm helped to produce. Experts from the UK, Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Spain, The Republic of Ireland, and the Netherlands attended the meeting, as well as observers from ITOPF and OSRL.
On the first day, the management aspects of an oiled wildlife response were discussed in order to finalise response guidelines that would be used by the organisations if an incident required international assistance.  The group also acknowledged the completion of the Oiled Bird Rehabilitation protocol, which serves as a basis for future training and responses in Europe.
Sea Alarm presented the recently funded EUROWA project and ITOPF made a presentation of their role and responsibilities following a marine shipping incident, including the various arrangements for compensation of costs that are in place.
The meeting also involved a check and assessment of the Hamburg-based wildlife stockpile that  the Expert group could use for a European wildlife emergency, as well as a table-top exercise to test the new response management guidelines.
The next meeting will take place early in 2015 as part of the EUROWA project.