After the Exxon Valdez oil spill, ALL oiled animals were counted and documented by qualified observers. The final official tally for oiled birds was between 100,000 and 250,000 oiled seabirds and at least 247 oiled Bald Eagles.
Everything changed with the BP spill. Official counts now include ONLY animals that are physically retrieved, and to minimize the numbers even further, the rules for picking up oiled animals have become horribly restrictive. They now severely limit who is allowed to pick up animals, actually prohibiting most licensed rehabbers--even those experienced with retrieving oiled animals--and prohibit capture of many severely oiled animals for specious reasons. For example, birds that are entirely covered with oil but can flutter weakly for a few feet, or those not actually in the water, are no longer allowed to be retrieved, OR counted. That was the case in the badly oiled Black-crowned Night-Heron photographed above. Estimates of oiling of birds on a breeding colony of 10,000 adults by careful observers found that 50-80 percent of those adults were oiled, but NOT ONE of them was counted in the official tally, nor any of their oiled eggs or nestlings. The final tally of 7,000 oiled birds after the BP spill was a horribly inaccurate undercount.
The official count is critical in accurately assessing damage to wildlife AND liability for responsible parties. We must go back to counting all oiled birds that can be reasonably documented.
