https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/oils-spills-are-even-worse-birds-we-thought
[images and links in on-line article]
Anyone who has ever seen a picture of a pelican covered in black crude
knows that oil spills are bad for birds. The sludge gums up their
feathers, neutralizing their ability to repel water and conserve heat,
which leads to hypothermia. For seabirds, oil can sink their natural
buoyancy and literally drag them into a watery grave. And the birds that
try to clean themselves ingest a sticky poison that ravages their
livers, lungs, and intestines.
Some lucky ones, however, get away with just a few smudges. And yet,
according to a new study published July 1 in the Journal of Experimental
Biology, even small amounts of oil can create problems for a bird down
the line.
“Feathers are the most important feature of a bird,” says the study’s
lead author, Ivan Maggini, an ornithologist at the University of Western
Ontario. They allow birds to jump off the ground and soar into the air,
plunge at incredibly high speeds, and even shoot in and out of water.
But these feats are only possible if a bird’s feathers are unencumbered.
The researchers grabbed up a bunch of supercute shorebirds called
western sandpipers and used a paintbrush to dab the tips of their wings
and tail feathers with varying amounts of crude taken from the 2010 BP
spill. The scientists then threw them into a wind tunnel to see what
would happen (but, you know, gently and ethically).
The result? Birds with just a light coating of oil covering less than 20
percent of their body surface had to expend approximately 20 percent
more energy than birds flying oil-free. When the researchers added a
slightly heavier layer of oil on about 30 percent of the birds’ body
surface, including feathers on both the breast and back, the western
sandpipers spent upwards of 45 percent more calories to fly than the
control group.
Migratory birds, particularly small ones that cover gigantic distances,
are even more vulnerable since they rely on fat stores for every leg of
their journey. Just like the gas tank in your car, a bird can fly only
so far before it needs to refuel, and oil on the wings is the equivalent
of getting fewer miles per gallon. Maggini and his colleagues haven’t
determined exactly why this is yet, but their best guess is that even
tiny blots of oil increase drag—like a greasy black ball and chain, he says.
Couldn’t the birdies just pull themselves up by their birdstraps and
work a little harder? The answer is yes and no, but Maggini says, “It’s
not true that a bird that survives an oil spill might get over it with
no repercussions.”
Western sandpipers with oiled wings will need to stop more frequently on
their way north and expend more energy finding food on their stopovers.
And while a day here or there might not seem like a big deal to us, for
a migrating bird it could mean the difference between a successful
breeding season and a colossal waste of time.
Males especially need to get to the breeding grounds early to build
scrapes, or depressions used for nests, and guard them until the ladies
roll into town and choose their favorite builders. Maggini says early
males have been shown to have greater reproductive success.
But striking out with females isn’t the only thing at stake here.
Another recent study by Maggini, published in Ecotoxicology and
Environmental Safety, shows that western sandpipers with oiled wings are
slower to take off when startled—and their escape trajectories are 10
degrees lower. With such sluggish getaways, oiled birds may be easy
pickings for predators, vehicle strikes, or other dangers.
Maggini says he and his coauthors were surprised that such small amounts
of crude could influence flight mechanics so greatly. Oil spills are
obviously environmentally disastrous, but the findings give us new
perspective on just how potent the consequences are for wildlife.
The new science arrives as President Trump is calling for the opening of
new waters to drilling in the Atlantic and Arctic, two crucial migratory
regions for birds from all over the Western Hemisphere—all while rolling
back safety regulations that would help prevent offshore disasters like
the BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, a spill that killed more than a
million seabirds. Given that migratory birds are already contending with
habitat degradation, heavy levels of mercury released by melting sea
ice, and potential food shortages brought on by climate change, maybe
it’s a good time to not throw oil into the mix.
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https://www.thespruce.com/how-oil-affects-birds-386496
How Oil Affects Birds
By Melissa Mayntz
Updated 04/04/17
Massive oil spills often make headlines because of their destructive
impact on wildlife and the environment, but what many people don't
realize is that even a small amount of oil – no more than a dime-sized
drop – can be deadly to birds. Understanding how oil affects birds can
raise awareness of just how hazardous any oil spill or similar pollution
can be.
Where Oil Spills Come From
Large scale oil pollution disasters come from obvious sources: offshore
drilling, tanker leaks and illegal dumping.
Yet small oil spills and leaks, such as a damaged jet ski, leaking
motorboat, illegally dumped quart of motor oil or runoff from road
pollution can be just as deadly to birds and other wildlife. Many of
these small spills and slicks go unreported, often because only a small
area, even just a few yards, is affected. Yet even the smallest spill
can have a fatal impact on the birds that come into contact with it.
Birds Affected by Oil Spills
The birds most affected by oil spills and petroleum contamination are
those that spend a majority of their time at sea or near the water, such
as gulls, ducks, pelicans, auks, grebes, terns and loons. If the oil
reaches shore, however, all types of shorebirds may be affected, as well
as migratory songbirds that use polluted habitats as critical migration
stopovers. Birds that feed from polluted areas, such as fish-hunting
eagles and ospreys, can also feel the disastrous effects of oil spills.
In short, no bird species are entirely unaffected by this type of toxic
pollution.
How Oil Affects Birds
The most obvious way oil affects birds is by coating their plumage in
sticky, greasy slime. Birds' feathers are precisely aligned and designed
to provide superb waterproofing and insulation. Oil in the feathers,
however, will mat them and misalign the tiny barbs that keep the
feathers properly positioned, and even a small misalignment can cause
birds to lose critical body heat, therefore exposing them to
temperatures and weather conditions that can be fatal.
Oiled birds also lose their natural buoyancy from air pockets created by
proper feather alignment, and they can sink and drown in polluted waters.
In order to remove the oil from their feathers, oiled birds will begin
to preen excessively, even desperately. As they preen, they
inadvertently ingest the toxic sludge, which will then poison their
kidneys, liver, lungs, intestines and other internal organs, causing
slow and agonizing death. If they do not die from the oil's toxicity,
their excessive preening in a desperate attempt to realign their
feathers and get clean again will cost them more energy than they can
spare, and many oiled birds eventually succumb to exhaustion,
dehydration or starvation.
More Impacts of Oil on Birds
Oil has more impacts on birds than just coating their plumage. An area
subjected to a large oil spill become uninhabitable for the birds as
food supplies are gradually killed off from the toxic poisons, and oil
coating nesting areas destroys critical habitat. If birds are already
nesting at the time of the pollution, oil that coats the eggs will
suffocate the unhatched chicks, decimating the birds' population. If
eggs have not been laid but female adults ingest the oil, the pollution
can cause thinner shells that are more subject to being crushed and
causing malformed chicks that will not survive.
Over time, small amounts of oil in the birds' ecosystem can be absorbed
into food supplies, gradually building to deadly concentrations in birds
that eat that food, whether it is plant life, insects, fish or other
food sources.
How You Can Help
It can take years to clean up and restore areas impacted by oil spills
and similar pollution, but there are many ways concerned birders can
help, such as:
Volunteering with cleanup efforts directly by learning how to clean
birds and affected habitats
Donating to organizations involved in cleanup either through
financial or material contributions or organizing fundraising drives
Joining organizations and related causes to raise awareness and
taking part in action campaigns to stop causes of oil pollution
Avoiding unintentional contributions to pollution problems by
keeping watercraft in peak condition without leaks and disposing of all
oils properly
Reporting any oiled birds or contaminants to local authorities
immediately to minimize pollution and begin restoration efforts
Working to reduce your carbon footprint as a birder to user fewer
oil resources and lessen the need for refined oil
Oil, even in small amounts, is deadly to birds and can have a lasting
impact on a contaminated area's ecosystem and other wildlife. By
understanding the severity of oil's affect on birds, it is possible to
raise awareness for rescue and rehabilitation efforts and minimize the
impact oil can have on all wildlife.
==========================================================================
http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/about/media/why-are-seabirds-so-vulnerable-oil-spills.html
Why Are Seabirds so Vulnerable to Oil Spills?
JANUARY 13, 2015 -- Out of the squawking thousands of black and white
birds crowding the cliff, a single male sidled up to the rocky edge.
After arranging a few out-of-place feathers with his sleek beak, the
bird plunged like a bullet into the ocean below.
These penguin look-alikes (no relation) are Common Murres. Found along
the U.S. coast from Alaska to California, this abundant species of
seabird dives underwater, using its wings to pursue a seafood dinner,
namely small fish.
During an oil spill, however, these classic characteristics of murres
and other seabirds work to their disadvantage, upping the chance they
will encounter oil—and in more ways than one.
To understand why seabirds are so vulnerable to oil spills, let's return
to our lone male murre and a hypothetical oil spill near his colony in
the Gulf of Alaska.
Preening in an Oil Sheen
After diving hundreds of feet beneath the cold waters of the North
Pacific Ocean, the male murre pops back to the surface with a belly full
of fish—and feathers laminated in oil.
This bird has surfaced from his dinner dive into an oil slick, a common
problem for diving birds during oil spills. His coat of feathers, once
warm and waterproof, is now matted. The oil is breaking up his
interlocking layer of feathers, usually maintained by the bird's
constant arranging and rearranging, known as preening.
With his sensitive skin suddenly exposed not just to the irritating
influence of oil but also to the cold, the male murre becomes chilled.
If he does not repair the alignment of his feathers soon, hypothermia
could set in. This same insulating structure also traps air and helps
the bird float on the water’s surface, but without it, the bird would
struggle to stay afloat.
Quickly, the freshly oiled seabird begins preening. But with each peck
of his pointed beak into the plumage, he gulps down small amounts of
oil. If the murre ingests enough oil, it could have serious effects on
his internal organs. Impacts range from disrupted digestion and diarrhea
to liver and kidney damage and destruction of red blood cells (anemia).
But oil can find yet another way of entering the bird: via the lungs.
When oil is spilled, it begins interacting with the wind, water, and
waves and changing its physical and chemical properties through the
process of weathering. Some components of the oil may evaporate, and the
murre, bobbing on the water’s surface, could breathe in the resulting
toxic fumes, leading to potential lung problems.
Birds'-Eye View
This single male murre is likely not the only one in his colony to
experience a run-in with the oil spill. Even those seabirds not
encountering the oil directly can be affected. With oil spread across
areas where the birds normally search for food and with some of their
prey potentially contaminated or killed by the oil, the colony may have
to travel farther away to find enough to eat. On the other hand, large
numbers of these seabirds may decide to up and move to another home for
the time being.
At the same time that good food is becoming scarcer, these birds will
need even more food to keep up their energy levels to stay warm, find
food, and ward off disease. One source of stress—the oil spill—can
exacerbate many other stresses that the birds often can handle under
usual circumstances.
If the oil spill happens during mating and nesting time, the impacts can
be even more severe. Reproducing requires a lot of energy, and on top of
that, exposure to oil can hinder birds' ability to reproduce. Eggs and
very young birds are particularly sensitive to the toxic and potentially
deadly properties of oil. Murres lay only one egg at a time, meaning
they are slower to replace themselves.
The glossy-eyed male murre we are following, even if he manages to
escape most of the immediate impacts of being oiled, would soon face the
daunting responsibility of taking care of his fledgling chick.
As young as three weeks old, his one, still-developing chick plops off
the steep cliff face where the colony resides and tumbles into the
ocean, perhaps a thousand feet to its waiting father below. There, the
father murre is the chick's constant caregiver as they travel out to
sea, an energy-intensive role even without having to deal with the
potential fallout from an oil spill.
Birds of a Feather Get Oiled Together
Like a bathtub filled with rubber ducks, murres form giant floating
congregations on the water, known as "rafts," which can include up to
250,000 birds. In fact, murres spend all but three or four months of the
year out at sea. Depending on where the oil travels after a spill, a
raft of murres could float right into it, a scenario which may be
especially likely considering murre habitat often overlaps with major
shipping channels.
After the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound,
responders collected some 30,000 dead, oil-covered birds. Nearly
three-quarters of them were murres, but the total included other birds
which dive or feed on the ocean surface as well. Because most bird
carcasses never make it to shore intact where researchers can count
them, they have to make estimations of the total number of birds killed.
The best approximation from the Exxon Valdez spill is that 250,000 birds
died, with 185,000 of them murres.
While this population of seabirds certainly suffered from this oil spill
(perhaps losing up to 40 percent of the population), murres began
recovering within a few years of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Surprisingly resilient, this species is nonetheless one of the most
studied seabirds [PDF] precisely because it is so often the victim of
oil spills.
=================================================================
https://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/less-than-1-of-oil-soaked-birds-survive.html
Less Than 1% of Oil-Soaked Birds Survive
Brian Merchant
June 8, 2010
"Kill, don't clean" oiled birds
No, that's not the opinion of a heartless bird-hater, or BP CEO Tony
Hayward letting fly another tactless gaffe. It's the actual
recommendation of one oil spill expert and animal biologist who says
that once birds are thoroughly oiled, the best course of action is to
put them out of their misery. Even if all the crude is scrubbed from
their feathers, she says, oiled birds are all but certain to die a long,
painful death.
This may shock many, and the advice certainly appears contrary to that
of the myriad conservationists who have set up centers around the Gulf
to care for oiled birds.
But Der Spiegel reports on why this biologist is dead serious:
Despite the short-term success in cleaning the birds and releasing
them back into the wild, few, if any, have a chance of surviving, says
Silvia Gaus, a biologist at the Wattenmeer National Park along the North
Sea in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.
"According to serious studies, the middle-term survival rate of
oil-soaked birds is under 1 percent," Gaus says. "We, therefore, oppose
cleaning birds."
Instead, she says, it would be less painful for the birds to kill them
quickly, or to let them die in peace.
Cleaning Birds Worse than Letting Them Die?
Capturing and scrubbing the birds is a traumatic experience, and is
incredibly stressful for the birds. Gaus also says that forcing birds to
ingest coal solutions like Pepto Bismol as rescue workers are doing in
the Gulf is ineffective, and that the birds will die from liver and
kidney damage anyways. Birds ingest the toxic oil while attempting to
clean their feathers.
According to a British Study cited in the report, the average bird
released after cleaning in other spills only survived for seven days.
Even the World Wildlife Fund agrees that cleaning is largely futile:
"Birds, those that have been covered in oil and can still be caught, can
no longer be helped. ... Therefore, the World Wildlife Fund is very
reluctant to recommend cleaning."
Which is why Gaus advocates a quick clean death for the birds, to end
their suffering. It's an unfortunate recommendation, and one that goes
against our better instincts, but what if Gaus and those who side with
her are right? If scrubbing oiled birds only increases their trauma --
and they still die, painfully, shortly after -- are such bird-cleaning
operations providing any service other than to make a public show of
BP's 'response' efforts? It's indeed depressingly grim to consider, but
perhaps conservationists are doing more harm than good by 'saving' birds
from the BP Gulf spill.
