AN OIL RIG LOOMS over terns and gulls at Louisiana’s Breton Island National Wildlife Refuge, a prime nesting site in the path of oil from the BP spill. This brown pelican (right) was among the oiled birds found after the spill. Oiling can have lasting effects. Ninety percent of some 20,000 African penguins victimized by an oil spill 10 years ago survived after treatment, but more than 25 percent are now sterile.


have improved their methods. “Our knowledge has grown exponentially,” says Michael Ziccardi, the veterinarian andUCDprofessor who heads the care network. In California, for both birds and sea


otters, the immediate threat created by a spill is the insidious effect of oil on their natural waterproofing. Nor- mally, inner feathers or hair form an intricate interlocking structure that traps air next to the skin, keeping creatures dry andwarm. Oil breaks up that structure. Suddenly, the animals can’t stay warm. They must eat more to rev up their metabolism. Unfortu- nately, the coating of oil makes it harder to float, fly, swim—or catch food. Then, as the creatures frantically preen and groom, they swallow and inhale oil. That ingestion can lead to pneumonia and organ damage. Death is usually swift and far from help.


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“The vast majority of animals that come in contact with oil are never even seen,” Estes says. Of the 584 affected birds found in the gulf by the end ofMay, 506 were already dead. When oiled animals are lucky


enough to be captured, the crucial task is quickly restoring their natural insu- lation. The actual washing, using Dawn detergent, hasn’t changed much since Exxon Valdez in March 1989. But years of research on birds and on captive otters experimentally coatedwith canola oil have shown that the standard rinse with salt water leaves behind salt crystals and soap scum, disrupting the air layer. Rinsing with warm and softened freshwater works far better, scientists discovered. So does putting the cleaned animals into recovery tanks filled with soft- ened freshwater. “We found we could cut the time from washing to full


recovery in half,” Jessup says. His team had a chance to try the new methods for real on February 21, 2009, when a female sea otter coated in tar washed up inMonterey Bay.After her bath and freshwater rinse, she dined on abalone, prawns and clams for six weeks before growing strong enough to return to the wild (complete with a radio transmitter and a Facebook fol- lowing). Jessup pegs the total cost for all her care at a bargain $5,000. Similar improvements in care have


been made for pelicans, common mur- res and other birds. And thanks to the battle against AIDS, rescuers have an arsenal of effective antifungal drugs to fight the infections that birds often develop in captivity. As a result, “the percentage of animals that survive to be released has increased dramatically,” the care network’s Ziccardi says. “Now, on average, it’s 50 to 70 percent.”


CARLOS BARRIA (REUTERS / CORBIS)


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