OILED WILDLIFE RESPONSE - THE ROLE OF AN OIL INDUSTRY SPILL RESPONSE CO-OPERATIVE

Abstract

ABSTRACT During an oil spill, public attention is focussed on animal welfare and care, primarily channelled through powerful media imagery and comment. Traditionally, animal welfare organisations are tasked to provide the manpower and resources to manage the rehabilitation and response effort, with Government and industry providing financial and administrative support on an ad hoc basis as the incident dictates. A novel response model has now been developed between the oil industry'S international response group, Oil Spill Response and East Asia Response Ltd (OSRL/EARL), and the wildlife response community. OSRL/EARL working in co-operation with the independent Sea Alarm Foundation (SAF) have collectively addressed oiled wildlife response issues and married their individual strengths, capabilities and resources to bring a new approach to oiled wildlife response. Preparedness and response activities to oiled wildlife will be enhanced and improved globally via the establishment of a database of Country Wildlife Response Profiles, a pool of specialist experts for wildlife response, equipment stockpiles at an aviation secure base and development of wildlife response plans in co-operation with recognised international groups. This poster details how these activities will benefit oiled wildlife response globally.