Upcoming Effects of Oil on Wildlife Conference

The 11th International Effects of Oil on Wildlife Conference is coming up next week.  Most of the OWCN team is headed to New Orleans on Monday for a week of learning.

Here are the talks and posters that the OWCN staff are presenting:

Kyra – At-Sea Capture Techniques for Oil Spill Response: Trials and Tribulations

Post-Release Monitoring of Western Grebes Using Implanted Satellite Transmitters

Mike – Application, Testing, and Modification of NOAA’s National Oiled Marine Mammal Care  Protocols During the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Emily – Changes to the OWCN’s Protocols for the Care of Oil Affected Birds

Christine – A Review of Fat-Soluble Vitamin Needs for Piscivorous Birds

Evidence-based Medicine in Oil Spill Response

Becky – The Importance and Utilization of Pre-trained Volunteers During Oiled Wildlife Response

Lavonne – How Did You Make That Happen?  A Day in the Life of an Admin Coordinator

Check out the conference website at www.eow2012.org to see all of the talks and lectures that will be presented throughout the week.  The conference proceedings will be made available after the conference so that everyone can learn from this gathering of oiled wildlife responders.

- Emily

Outreach…An Important Piece of the Puzzle

Becky with our young "oil experts"

Today Becky, Emily, and I did an outreach for a 2nd grade class at one of the local Davis schools, Willett Elementary. We talked with the children about how oil spills are harmful to the environment, what we do when an oil spill does occur, and what are some ways that we can help reduce our dependency on oil. The kids were very engaged and had some unique and imaginative views of their own. We then helped them get their tyvek suits on and we created a mock mini-oil spill in a tub of water. The idea was to give them several “tools” to use to try to mop up and contain the oil and to see which ones worked the best. Several of the students also tried washing oil off off feathers.

It is easy to get a bit bogged down with preparing for talks at conferences, various paperwork, and the day-to-day office stuff. Teaching kids about oil spills and seeing their concerned and at the same time enthusiastic faces helps put things in perspective about why what we do is so important. We can only hope that outreach events such as these have a lasting impact on the minds of these young people.

Kyra.

Webinars

Hello Everyone,

Due to demand for viewing the recorded OWCN webinars, we’ve decided to continue making them available into 2012.  If you are interested in viewing any of our webinars, please contact your member organization to get the registration information.  Also, look forward to new live webinar topics this coming year.  Information on these new webinars will be posted on our blog when it becomes available.

Please have a happy and safe holiday break, and here’s to a spill-free New Year!

-Becky

Getting ready for the New Year

In keeping with the hustle and bustle of preparing for the holiday season, OWCN staff has been busy finishing off our preparations for the upcoming spill season. Instead of buying presents for loved ones, we’ve been checking inventories, rotating stock and ordering supplies. Instead of cleaning our house for visiting relatives, we’ve been washing and polishing our spill vehicles. Instead of stuffing stockings, we’ve been stocking stuff. Of course, we could not totally let the holiday season go by without a little celebration, so we used our creative talents to design our very own special OWCN holiday tree using, yes you guessed it, spill equipment. Check out the picture.

I hope that you have a quiet (i.e. spill free) and joyful holiday season!

Sincerely,
Nancy Anderson

The OWCN 2011 Holiday Tree

The MASH Unit is READY TO Go!

Clean and Shiny OWCN Truck

Wrapping up 2011 and looking forward to 2012

After months of travel to far corners of the world, the entire OWCN team is finally back together in one place.  For the first time recent memory, Mike has been spotted for more than 2 consecutive days here in at our offices in Davis!  We have missed him over the past two months as he jetted across the country and the world; after 3 weeks in New Zealand responding to the MV Rena Spill, he has given lectures and trainings in Martinique, Florida, Texas, and Southern California.  Becky returned from her deployment to New Zealand the day before Thanksgiving and Nancy returned yesterday from a vacation in Nepal with fabulous stories of adventure and humorous travel mishaps.  As the year comes to a close, we are taking advantage of this opportunity to complete ongoing projects and lining up new projects for the New Year.  Here’s a sample of what we’ve been working on…

We are pushing ahead with the custom designed UPS Trackpad database, which will take the place of all animal records during spill response.  This system will enable responders to enter all animal care data directly into handheld units from the moment the animal is collected on the beach to the moment it is released back into the wild.

Along the same lines, Becky and I have been looking at software solutions to track all the California oil spill response personnel data.  We’re looking into solutions that will enable each OWCN spill responder from our Network Member Organizations to create an online profile, maintain their current contact information, sign up for and view records of their trainings such as webinars and outreach events, list availability for shifts during spill response, and record volunteer hours.

Our first ever offering of an online 8hr HAZWOPER Refresher course took place in November.  This morning, Kyra reported that she is sending out certificates this week to 73 newly refreshed HAZWOPER-ers (HAZWOPER-ites?).  All 24hrHAZWOPER personnel are required to attend an annual refresher course, so mark your calendars: the course will be offered again in June and November of 2012.

Finally, look for our Annual Update in early 2012 for a report on all of this year’s activities.  Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season and a happy New Year!

Emily

MV Rena Update: First Penguin Release!

Responders boxing up the penguins before heading to the release site.

Hello Everyone,

My last day in Tauranga has been an exciting one, as today was the first release of little blue penguins back out into the wild.  After a great deal of work by the cleaning crews to get the beaches ready, one location was deemed suitable to release penguins to.  The lucky penguins who originally came from that area (Rabbit Island), spent the week going through a sort of fitness test, to make sure they were healthy enough for release.  After a six hour swim and a waterproof check, they visited with the vets and received a health exam, and then had to jump up on the scale to make sure they had been eating enough fish and maintaining a healthy weight.  Those who passed their test were placed into animal carries and carried off to the beach this morning.

Preparing to release.

The release itself was a large event.  Hundreds of people showed up, including many locals, several school groups and politicians, and many of the people involved with the Rena spill on various levels.  Everyone clapped for the penguins as they entered the release location on the beach, and the boxes were placed in a semi-circle around the waterline to prepare for the release.

Little blue penguins heading home.

A beautiful native prayer ceremony was held, and at its conclusion all of the boxes were opened at the same time.  Most of the penguins took right to the water and began swimming directly for their home on Rabbit Island, and after a few minutes all that was left were small prints in the sand leading to the water.  Truly a great day for the penguins and the folks that have worked so hard to send them back to the wild.

Prints from the penguins heading home at last.

I would like to give a big thank you to the whole crew that I worked with these past few weeks, especially the Massey University team for inviting me to come.  I have learned so much while I was here, and I hope that I helped you all along the way.  Also, thanks to the International Bird Rescue staff that was here, it was wonderful to see friendly, familiar faces in the crowd.

Some of the response crew after the release.

To everyone back in the U.S., have a wonderful and safe holiday weekend, and I will see you all soon!  And to view some videos of the penguins, check out our Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/OiledWildlifeCareNetwork

-Becky

Sea otter research

Last week, a few of us had the opportunity to help out with a large, collaborative study on sea otter biology.  Led by Tim Tinker of USGS (United States Geological Survey), biologists, divers, veterinarians, veterinary technicians, and graduate students converged in Big Sur to capture, sample, tag, and remove instrumentation from sea otters involved in a long-term study.  I said it was a collaborative effort, and I wasn’t kidding . . . . besides USGS and OWCN, there were folks from UCSC, California Dept. of Fish & Game, US Fish & Wildlife Service, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and the Marine Wildlife Veterinary Care and Research Center in Santa Cruz (yes, a lot of acronyms!).

Kyra helping out with the boats.

There were people assigned to help with identifying otters from shore, divers to capture the animals, boat drivers to bring animals to shore, a veterinary team to anesthetize and examine the otters, and perform surgery for implant removal, biologists for taking measurements and samples, and enthusiastic assistants to scribe and generally run to and fro, ensuring that things went smoothly.  Kyra helped on one of the boats, and Emily and I were on shore at the mobile vet lab.  Although fortunately none of these otters were oiled, it was a great opportunity for OWCN staff to increase our sea otter capture and handling skills, as well as a way to get to know sea otter experts (who would be a huge resource in the case of a spill!).

Monterey Bay Aquarium staff bringing a sea otter from the shore to the mobile vet lab.

We successfully captured five sea otters, two of whom had surgery to have implants removed and three of whom were new animals who just needed sampling and flipper tagging.  It was a great chance for Emily and me to get more comfortable anesthetizing sea otters, and for all of us to get a better feeling for how sea otters are captured and processed.

Sunset at Big Creek beach

It took a lot of dedicated people to make it work, but aside from some minor boat breakdowns (which I’ve come to learn are inevitable whenever boats are involved!), everything went incredibly well.  It was a privilege to spend a few days in such a gorgeous place, even if we did have to survive without cell phone reception!  A spill involving sea otters would be devastating, but we are much better prepared now that we have participated in this effort last week.

Christine

Rena Spill – Update 11/11/11!!!

Hi Everyone,

Because sometime you eat too many fish...

Just a quick spill update for 11/11/11 (well, actually it’s 11/12/11 here, but….).  I’ve been hard at work the past few days.  My life has become wake up, feed penguins, schedule the personnel, feed penguins, sleep, repeat.  Surprisingly, I have yet to grow tired of the little blue penguins, even considering a penguin flung fish juice in my face this morning,I have cuts all over my hands, and I can’t scrub the fish smell off of my skin.  It is amazing the amount of work that goes into caring for these little guys.  Feeding alone takes 6 hours out of the day (not including prepping the fish), and cleaning is a world in it’s own.  Wendy Massey has been leading up the cleaning crews for the aviaries (pronounced “avery” here, like the boys name), which consists of 5 people spending the entire day cleaning.  With the changes being made to ready the penguins for their eventual release, that number will go up to 6.

Wendy Massey and her cleaning crew, helping to herd penguins for their afternoon feeding.

The exciting news is we heard today that they have made a good deal of progress getting oil off of the ship, and they will hopefully finish up soon.  Much planning is now going into how best to prepare the penguins for release and making sure everything is all set for them to go.  Speaking of going, I need to get going to help with the afternoon feeding.  Hoping all is well with the network members back home, and don’t forget, just because I’m gone, doesn’t mean that you guys can skip out on watching recorded webinars!!!

-Becky

Update on S. S. Montebello

The evaluation of S.S. Montebello, a tanker ship that sank off the coast of Cambria, California after being torpedoed by a Japanese sub in 1941 is complete. The team led by experts from the Coast Guard and California Department of Fish and Game’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response deployed a specially designed ROV (remote operated vehicle) to determine whether there was significant oil remaining in the cargo or fuel tanks. By using cutting edge technology that included neutron backscatter analyses and ultrasonic evaluation of hull thickness, the unified command was able to conclude “with a high level of confidence that there is no oil threat from the S.S. Montebello.” This is great news for the wildlife, beaches and wildlife responders in southern California.

Photo credits: http://www.dfg.ca.gov/ospr/Admin/Montebello/Montebello-DownPics.asp

Propeller blades from the S. S. MontebelloNet Draping the S.S. MontebelloS. S. Montebello USCG briefingDFG Patrol Boat Bluefin and the Motor Vessel NanuqLaunching the ROV to work on S.S. Montebello

For additional information and to view more video or photos of the operation,

Please visit the DFG website at http://www.dfg.ca.gov/ospr/Admin/Montebello/index.aspx

M/V Rena Spill Update

Hello Everyone,

Some of the team from the Auckland Zoo. They are responsible for caring for the endangered dotterels.

Day 2 for me working at the wildlife center here in Tauranga. So far everything has been great; the facility is well organized, everyone knows what they’re doing, and the people are fantastic. My first day here, I spent the morning working with the endangered dotterels (see Kyra’s post on November 14th for more info on them). There is a rotating team from the Auckland Zoo that is here to take care of them. The recovering endangered-species-breeder in me really appreciated the amount of work that is going into taking care of these birds to preemptively protect them from oil, and the team is doing a fantastic job. These birds are a very shy species, so additionally, the team has to take extra efforts to keep their stress levels down.

Pauline demonstrating how to feed penguins.

In the afternoon of my first day, I was introduced to everyone’s favorite, the little blue penguin. As I used every ounce of my self control to not scoop up penguins and cuddle them (they really don’t like that, nor is it good for them), Pauline, the personnel manager here at the facility, gave a demonstration in penguin feeding. With several hundred of these birds at the facility, penguin feeding is probably the most time consuming activity each day.

I was also able to squeeze in a quick tour of the facility, and had a chance to see how Pauline manages the volunteers here. I’ve already learned a few things that I think will help with managing volunteers, should we have a spill in California, and am eager to learn more.

Day 2 here has me spending day feeding penguins again, and I have to say, I’m already getting really good at picking fish scales out of my hair. I’m hoping this afternoon to also spend some time stopping in at each area of the facility, just to learn about the flow, and to talk more with Pauline about how she keeps the communication flowing about personnel needs in each section.

More to come soon….

-Becky