Fish and Wildlife Contingency Planning for Oil Spills: The Need for A National Wildlife Plan1

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ABSTRACT If responders believe preplanning will help them become more successful during an oil spill, a recent survey shows that they are not very successful at wildlife protection and response preplanning in Area Contingency Plans (ACPs), at least here on the Atlantic Coast. Wildlife planners in a few states, such as California and Alaska, have committed considerable resources to develop statewide goals, best practices, and standards for wildlife planning and have also described tactical implementation for wildlife protection. In most areas of the United States, however, planning for protection and rehabilitation of wildlife is limited to listing the name and phone number of the regional wildlife volunteer organization. How is “success” achieved for wildlife protection and rehabilitation? Wildlife Resource Management Agencies have a responsibility to support the ACP planning process as well as to tell industry what they expect them to accomplish during an oil spill. Without goals and some tangible definition of success it is not possible for planners neither to determine if they have done adequate planning nor to determine if any given spill response actually met the Wildlife Resource Management Agency's expectations. Wildlife Resource Management Agencies should provide the Area Committees with appropriate wildlife protection and response goals, recommended protocols, and best practices. The objective of the February 2001 workshop funded by the Prince William Sound Oil Spill Recovery Institute (OSRI) is to develop national standards and protocols relative to migratory birds affected or potentially affected by an oil spill. Perhaps these protocols and standards could be published in a National Wildlife Plan. A National Wildlife Plan should enable the Area Committee to identify at least three things: (1) appropriate goals, such as which sensitive wildlife resources are most at risk and should be protected; (2) appropriate protocols and strategies for the protection and rehabilitation of wildlife including countermeasures to protect wildlife habitats and the most useful wildlife hazing and preemptive capture strategies to protect the maximum number of the most critical resources; and (3) levels of wildlife protection and response resources needed to accomplish these strategies. The building of a National Wildlife Plan will require a thoughtfully structured consensus process. One method would be for representatives of Wildlife Resource Management Agencies to actively participate in workshops or in an ecological risk assessment process designed to reach consensus on a wide range of wildlife issues.