OIL SPILL SETS DEADLY RECORD FOR SEA BIRDS

By TOM KIZZIA
Daily News reporter

HOMER- The Exxon Valdez oil spill killed more sea birds than any oil spill in history, according to a study by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists.

The new study estimates the total number of birds killed at between 90,000 and 270,000. About 30,000 sea birds killed by the oil spill were recovered last summer, the biologists concluded. They said that represents between 10 percent and 30 percent of the total dead.

"Ten percent is far too low and 30 percent might be too high," said Calvin Lensink, who wrote the report with John Piatt. "The number is more likely to be somewhere around the middle."

Even the most conservative estimate dwarfs the mortality from wellknown oil spills like the Torrey Canyon in 1967 and the Amoco Cadiz in 1978, the authors said. And no recorded oil pollution has killed more than 50,000 birds.

Their findings will be published in the British scientific journal Nature. A more detailed study will be published in the American ornithological journal Auk, Lensink said.

The numbers have more than historical interest. They will be a key part of civil and criminal cases in federal court over the Exxon Valdez spill, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Bruce Batten.

The high bird death estimates were not unexpected. The northern Gulf of Alaska has one of the largest marine bird populations in the world, the authors said.

The biologists said 90 percent of the birds were killed outside Prince William Sound. One large murre colony on the Barren Islands was probably decimated, they said. However, it will be years before scientists know if the losses are large enough to have lasting impacts on bird populations, they said.

The researchers estimated populations would be fully recovered in 20 to 70 years. "Recovery will be accelerated if birds emigrate from unaffected colonies."

Exxon biologist Mike Barker said the federal mortality estimates may be high. He said Exxon's wildlife recovery effort probably picked up a greater percentage of dead birds than would otherwise have been found. And some of the dead birds that were collected early last summer probably died of natural causes.

"There were carcasses on those beaches on March 23," the day before the Exxon Valdez hit a reef and released nearly 11 million gallons of North Slope crude into the Sound. He said Exxon had not been given access to federal freezers to test the carcasses for the cause of death.

Barker said Exxon did not have its own estimates yet because it had been prevented from participating in the studies with federal and state biologists. "We felt we were going to be included in the design of the studies but, unfortunately, we've been locked out of that process," he said.

The federal biologists calculated the difference between birds recovered and the total birds killed in part on previous corpse drift studies. But they also conducted their own.

On May 6, 100 oiled carcasses were tagged with bright markers and tossed overboard near the Barren Islands, where heavy bird mortality occurred. Only three of the tagged birds were ever found.

"Interestingly, those three ended up on the same beach where we got the original specimens," Lensink said. The beach was on the Alaska Peninsula, several hundred miles from where the carcasses were set adrift.

Another recent federal study on the spill added grim data on eagles. Fish and Wildlife Service surveys found a nest failure rate in oiled portions of Prince William Sound of 67 percent. Adjacent unoiled areas had a failure rate of 46 percent, while an Interior area studied had failure of only 29 percent.

Nest failure measures occupied nests that fail to produce an eaglet. Nests above the most heavily oiled beaches had a failure rate of 83 percent, said federal biologist Phil Schempf.

Further studies are being done on the link between nest failures and oiled beaches, he said. The Fish and Wildlife Service has reported 151 eagles found dead after the spill. Population surveys next spring will be necessary to gauge the spill's impact on eagles, Schempf said.

In addition to the sea birds and eagles, 1,016 sea otters were found dead after the spill, Fish and Wildlife said. The National Marine Fisheries Service is studying the possible link between the spill and seal and whale deaths, Batten said.

Wildlife rehabilitation efforts led to treatment and release of 816 birds and 193 otters, according to the federal agency.

The body count will probably be entered as evidence in federal court. A federal grand jury is meeting to consider criminal charges against the oil spillers, Batten said. They may be charged with violating such laws as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the Bald Eagle Protection Act.

In addition, civil penalties can be levied against Exxon under the Clean Water Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act, Batten said. The number of animals killed will be one measure for assessing damages.

Complicating the calculation of sea birds killed by the oil spill were the deaths of many shearwaters, kittiwakes and immature puffins around Kodiak in August and September. The federal researchers decided to attribute the deaths to natural causes. Although cleanup workers recovered 37,000 dead seabirds, only 30,000 are being attributed to the oil spill.

Piatt and Lensink compared that number to 7,815 retrieved after the spill of the Torrey Canyon and 4,572 after the spill of the Amoco Cadiz. They said the total kills in those spills were estimated at 30,000 and 20,000, respectively. The Torrey Canyon spilled 35 million gallons of oil and the Amoco Cadiz 66 million, compared to 11 million spilled by the Exxon Valdez.

Several lesserknown incidents of acute oil pollution in the North and Baltic seas resulted in the loss of 30,000 to 50,000 seabirds, Lensink and Piatt wrote.

In an interview, Lensink pointed out that the large number of bird deaths caused by the Exxon Valdez spill is a small fraction of the number of birds killed in foreign gillnets every year. He said scientists estimate 700,000 seabirds are killed annually in the North Pacific by the highseas gillnet fleet.

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