Slow Death: Deliberate Oil Pollution and Seabirds
Public concern and outrage are generally focused on large, headline-grabbing oil spills such as the sinking of the single-hulled tanker Prestige off the coast of Spain in November 2002. But few people have been aware of a far more insidious and deadly environmental problem until now: deliberate oil pollution.
Many ships deliberately - and illegally - dump a toxic cocktail of water and oily waste from their engine-room bilges into the sea. Dumping bilge oil at sea rather than properly disposing of it in port saves money and time; the killing of birds is merely incidental.
Beached bird surveys conducted between 1984 and 1999 indicate that deliberate oil pollution along the southeast coast of Newfoundland is among the highest in world. [From: "The extent of chronic marine oil pollution in southeastern Newfoundland waters assessed through beached bird surveys 1984-1999" by Francis K. Wiese and Pierre C. Ryan]
Unfortunately, major shipping lanes and immense bird populations collide on the Grand Banks, off the southeast coast of Newfoundland, where much of this illegal deliberate oil pollution takes place. In the winter, the Grand Banks is home to more than 40 million seabirds. Deliberate oil pollution kills at least 300,000 birds off the Newfoundland coast every year -- the same number of birds killed in the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster.
A spot of oil the size of a quarter is enough to kill a seabird in the frigid conditions of the North Atlantic. Once a seabird's interlocking feathers are breached by oil -- they hook together with tiny barbs and barbules to form waterproof and insulating layers -- hypothermia and drowning are almost assured. Due to their timid nature, oiled seabirds only come ashore when they are severely sick; most die a slow, painful death at sea.
Species most adversely affected by chronic oiling are diving birds (Alcids) such as the Atlantic puffin, common and thick-billed murres, and razorbills. These birds have a limited ability to recover from population reductions due to their low reproductive rates, late maturity, and habit of laying only one egg a year.
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When seabirds come into contact with oil in the cold waters of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, they lose their ability to keep warm and succumb to a long and painful death. Photo © Environment Canada
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Chemical analyses of oil samples taken from affected birds recovered along the southern coast of Newfoundland show that the oil is from ship bilges, not other sources. Photo © Environment Canada
