Publication of a brand new international oiled wildlife response standard
We are proud to announce that IPIECA/IOGP have just released a new publication, Key principles for the protection, care and rehabilitation of oiled wildlife.
We are proud to announce that IPIECA/IOGP have just released a new publication, Key principles for the protection, care and rehabilitation of oiled wildlife.
Sea Alarm is very pleased to announce that it has completed and published its 100th Country Wildlife Response Profile. To responders and response planners, these Profiles are broadly respected and often a crucial source of information on each country’s apparent capacity to deal with an oiled wildlife incident.
How prepared are we for oiled wildlife response?
This is a question regularly considered by the HELCOM Response (Baltic Sea Area) Expert Working Group on Oiled Wildlife Response (EWR-OWR), chaired by Sea Alarm.
To help with making an accurate assessment of their level of preparedness, the Working Group decided to develop a self-assessment tool to aid countries in gauging and reporting on their progress toward preparedness for response to oiled wildlife.
Sea Alarm will be at the Interspill Conference (Amsterdam 24-26 March 2015) presenting a paper that explores the wildlife response planning implications of the new EU Directive on Offshore Safety. This Directive was adopted in 2014 and includes some explicit references to oiled wildlife response preparedness which call to have “arrangements” in place in the so called “external response plans”.
Mallydams Wood, an RSPCA wildlife rehabilitation centre and nature reserve, hosted the ninth European Oiled Wildlife Responders meeting on17-19 March, 2014. Sea Alarm staff, along with representatives from the RSPCA, ProBird, Estonian Fund for Nature (ELF) and Wildlife Rescue Centre Ostend (WRCO), gathered to continue their work on the European Oiled Wildlife Response Manual.
Sea Alarm, in consultation with the Centre Vétérinaire de la Faune Sauvage et des Écosystèmes (CVFSE) and WWF Finland, has developed an Oiled Wildlife Response Manual for the Preparedness for Oil-polluted Shoreline cleanup and Oiled Wildlife Interventions (POSOW) project. POSOW, which will run for 2 years, is coordinated by the Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response Centre for the Mediterranean Sea (REMPEC) and co-funded by the European Commission.
A list and description of Important Areas for the Conservation of Seabirds (marine IBAs) in Spain has been recently published by SEO/BirdLife (Spanish Ornithological Society) as an important delivery of an EU LIFE Project that started in 2004. The Spanish initiative ran in parallel with a sister LIFE Project in Portugal, carried out by the local BirdLife partner SPEA (Portuguese Society for the Protection of Birds), which also culminated in the publication of a marine IBA inventory.
In the Netherlands an important new step has been taken to increase the national preparedness to oiled wildlife incident. The Dutch authority for oil spill preparedness and response, Rijkswaterstaat, has provided a budget to the national oiled bird rehabilitation network SON to develop a manual that can be used to train groups of volunteers that can be called on in case of a larger oiled wildlife incident.
Sea Alarm recently produced a brochure, which provides an overview of its objectives and main activities. Please contact us to order a printed copy.
Sea Alarm published an article in the Spring 2009 edition of the Cleaner Seas magazine, which outlines how an international wildlife response operates, which challenges could arise and the way forward.
Sea Alarm was also featured in the New Zealand Wildlife Health Centre’s Newsletter (Issue 2) in March 2009.