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Tag: OWCN
BAX Staff Activated by Oiled Wildlife Care Network
Last Saturday a truck hauling diesel fuel wrecked on US 101, near Big Lagoon in Northern Humboldt County. It was reported that approximately 1000 gallons of diesel fuel leaked from the overturned trailer and some of that made into the waterway. Diesel fuel is unlike crude oil or less refined fuels – it evaporates quickly but it also kills more quickly – causing severe respiratory injuries and skin burns.
At first, it was believed that all of the spilled fuel had been contained and that none of our wild neighbors had been impacted. However, early Monday morning, local Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) personnel spotted two Ruddy Ducks that appeared to be contaminated by diesel.
By Monday afternoon BAX staff along with other responders from CDFW and the Oiled Wildlife Care Network (OWCN) were in the field searching for any wild animals impacted by the spill.
Lucinda Adamson, BAX/HWCC wildlife rehabilitator at the Big Lagoon spill last week. (photo: Bird Ally X)
BAX responder, Elissa Blair surveys Big Lagoon early in the morning searching for oiled wildlife. (photo: Bird Ally X)
By late Wednesday, no live oiled animals had been found. One dead Ruddy Duck (Oxyura jamaicensis) was found that was later confirmed to be oiled.
One death is too many. And no doubt there were other wild animals not found who were killed by the diesel. Still, this could have been much worse. Big Lagoon is a naturally attractive waterfowl area, with thousands of birds of many species using it as a winter home. Perhaps fortunately, the Lagoon breached over the weekend as well and the water level fell considerably, possibly helping dissipate the petro-toxin. As the saying goes, the solution to pollution is dilution.
Instead of a major disaster we experienced a trial under live fire – which we can use to improve our capabilities and insure preparedness for any future accidents or spills. Preparedeness is the first and most important step toward meeting the mission of the OWCN.
The Oiled Wildlife Care Network is a little known agency in California – jointly administered by UC Davis’ Wildlife Health Center and an oilspill-specific department within CDFW, the Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR)* – that is unique in our country and maybe even the world – a network of universities, agencies and wildlife care providers dedicated to providing the “best achievable capture and care of oil-affected wildlife.” The OWCN has nearly 40 member organizations and several primary care facilities purpose-built for large scale spill responses all along the California coast.
BAX was founded by wildlife rehabilitators and spill responders who each have a long history with the OWCN. We’ve worked hard to bring HWCC up to the standards required to be a member organization. When oil spills here in our backyard or anywhere in California (as we saw last Spring in Santa Barbara), BAX staff can be mobilized to provide whatever help is needed.
If you’re interested in becoming a qualified oiled wildlife responder, volunteering with us at our Bayside clinic is an excellent first step!
And as always, it is your support that makes our work possible. Thank you for your generosity and for your love for the Wild!
* the alphabet soup gets thick fast! Basically UCD-WHC with CDFW-OSPR runs the OWCN of which HSU-MWCC and HWCC/BAX are members, or just read the story above and let the acronyms dissolve into eternity….
Bird Ally X staff on scene at Refugio Oil Spill
A pipeline rupture along the coast in Santa Barbara County has spilled tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean and onto the shoreline.
Marie Travers, one of BAX’ co-directors, is on the scene helping with the wildlife rescue effort. Other BAX staff are on standby, ready to go, as the horrible situation unfolds.
Your support of our mission makes it possible for us to help anywhere that injured wildlife is in need. We’ll provide updates as they are available.
BAX co-director, Marie Travers, cares for a Canada Goose while responding to an oil spill in 2013 – photo Laura Corsiglia/BAX
In memory of Jay Holcomb, pioneer in oiled wildlife care.
read IBR’s statement on Jay Holcomb’s passing
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I am saddened to note the passing of Jay Holcomb. As Executive Director of International Bird Rescue, Jay responded to hundreds of oil spills around the world including two of the largest spills in US history – Exxon Valdez in Alaska and Deepwater Horizon on the Gulf Coast. His energy and his commitment to excellent oiled wildlife care were unique in the world, and he will be missed by many. Through his organization, effective protocols to treat oiled wildlife spread internationally. Jay’s impact was enormous, and his death will not slow that impact down. Jay Holcomb lives.
I worked directly with Jay from 2002 until 2009. I was inspired by him and challenged. It was Jay who accepted me into the obscure profession of oil spill response and more broadly, wild aquatic bird care. I am grateful for those 7 years working with Jay and for the direction the time spent working with him has given my own life and work. No doubt there are very many people who feel this way.
I think it is safe to say that Jay placed more trust in his own intuition than he did in any abstract set of rules or protocols. He would easily place someone in a position of responsibility based on his sense of that person rather than her or his resume. This was certainly the case with me. When Jay hired me to monitor a small breeding band of the threatened Western Snowy Plover in Trona, a surreal dry salt lake mine in the Mojave desert, my credentials did not support his decision – I had been a wildlife rehabilitator in the Seattle area for only 3 years – I was not a biologist. Frankly I was disturbed by this. I wondered if he knew what he was doing. I was forced by these circumstances to learn what I could as quickly as possible. This wasn’t the last time that Jay did this with me. When the Cosco Busan struck the Bay Bridge in San Francisco Bay on a foggy November morning in 2007, over 1000 Surf scoters, Western grebes, Greater Scaup and others were coated in the bunker fuel that gushed from the vessel’s torn side. Jay was running the “washroom,” where the stricken birds were cleaned after being stabilized. At the end of the first day, Jay turned the room over to me. There was no time to argue. I did the best job I could. I am sure many wondered why he had placed such a difficult task in the hands of someone as un-noteworthy as I.
As with most who follow their own compass, Jay could be controversial. I would be disingenuous if I did not admit my own ambivalent feelings. In 2009 Jay and I had a falling out over decisions he made that I thought were damaging to our program and staff. I left IBR at this time, feeling betrayed. Ironically, Jay had once said to me that the large number of wildlife rescue organizations that had been started by people who had broken off from him in anger actually pleased him. He was glad to see our profession grow, even in this manner.
Two years later, while caring for scores of fish-oiled Brown pelicans with Bird Ally X, an organization I co-founded with others who left IBR in 2009, Jay sent me an email that he was glad we were “out there” working for wildlife. We exchanged occasional emails after that, until his death.
It may be odd to say that in Jay’s sickness was an opportunity, yet knowing he was gravely ill gave many of us a chance to reach out to him, to re-kindle warmth and to acknowledge and celebrate his profound impact. Jay’s death is a reminder to me, and perhaps to us all, that this world, damaged by people, is also repaired by people: not by gods, not by perfect beings, but by people – with conflicted, complicated mixes of motives, experiences, desires and most of all, a passion for the wild and an unshakeable conviction that action is necessary to protect and rescue our wild kith and kin when they are injured by our modern world.
I miss knowing Jay is out there. My grief is like your grief. We are glad he is at peace, and we mourn the absence of his life and breath. I wish him well in the next place his spirit ventures, and I wish you all well in the work that you do, everyday, on behalf of wild animals.
Take care,
Monte Merrick
photo of Jay, January 2009, speaking to volunteers at IBR in Cordelia, CA. photo taken by Laura Corsiglia
