Mysterious Oil Spill Killing Hundreds of California Seabirds

Hundreds of oil-drenched California seabirds, each resembling a miniature penguin, are perched at the center of an oceanic mystery.

More than 725 common murres have come ashore since Thanksgiving covered in thick, toxic oil. The source of the oil has eluded state and federal officials as well as the scores of volunteers who have worked around the clock to save the creatures.

At least 410 birds have been brought in dead and 100 more have died in captivity--mostly the two-pound murres but also a few loons and grebes, officials said. Many were completely covered in oil.

An additional 115 or more birds are being treated at the International Bird Rescue Research Center northeast of San Francisco. There, workers are laboriously scrubbing the oil from their scrawny bodies and nursing the birds back to health.

At least 50 have been returned to the wild, but 50 or more have been put to sleep. Naturalists say many birds have died because the oil mats their feathers, damaging the insulation net and exposing their sensitive skin to temperature extremes. Other birds ingest oil while preening, damaging their internal organs.

While volunteers try to save the birds, U.S. Coast Guard and state Fish and Game aircraft are combing thousands of square miles of ocean in an attempt to locate what officials call the “San Mateo Mystery Oil Spill.”

In a state lab near Sacramento, clinicians have compared the oil found on birds with samples from Alaska’s North Slope and even from the oil tanker Puerto Rican that sank off the Golden Gate Bridge 18 years ago. They’ve ruled out such possible explanations as ruptured underground pipelines and natural seepage from the Pacific Ocean’s murky depths.

Meanwhile, dozens of oiled birds appear daily along a 125-mile stretch of coast from Monterey to Marin County. Nobody knows if the birds are dying by the reckless hand of man or some strange quirk of nature.

“We know it’s out there. Something has to be out there, because the birds are getting into the oil day after day,” said Scott Newman, a wildlife veterinarian at UC Davis. “Meanwhile, it’s the saddest thing to see the birds have to go through this.”

Unknown oil spills have occurred along the Northern California coast before, but none has claimed this many seabirds, officials said. They theorize that offshore winter storms could have blown oil slicks north. And they’re investigating the possibility of “bilge dumping” that occurs when a tanker illegally flushes its old oil at sea rather than at port, where it must be disposed of as hazardous waste.

Authorities are checking the sea logs of tankers known to have been in the area. If caught bilge dumping, a vessel’s captain could be jailed and its owners fined.

“Right now, we’re treating this as a criminal investigation,” said Scott Murtha, a state Fish and Game warden who is supervising the recovery effort.

The mystery began Nov. 24, when oily birds began washing ashore from San Francisco to Point Reyes National Seashore and the Farallon Islands 22 miles offshore.

“People began finding them on the beach,” said Scott Delucchi, a spokesman for the Peninsula Humane Society in San Mateo. “The birds almost look like penguins, but the ones I saw were almost completely black [from the oil]. You couldn’t see any white on them at all.”

Researchers got their first clues on Dec. 8, when Coast Guard squads spotted a five-mile-long sheen of oil about 20 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge. But they were turned back by rough seas when they tried to clean up the oil, which has now broken up or evaporated.

Since then, the Coast Guard has continued sending a C-130 plane equipped with infrared radar in search of oil slicks. Officials believe the leak has been a recurring event.

“Old oil would be weathered; there would be drier lumps. But these birds are coming in every day with oil that’s fresh,” said Dana Michaels, a spokeswoman for the state’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response, created a decade ago following Alaska’s Exxon Valdez disaster.

Nearly every day, pet carriers containing 40 to 50 injured birds arrive at Cordelia’s Bird Rescue Research Center, which is set up like a hospital emergency room. Many are shivering from cold and hunger. The birds are weighed and treated for malnutrition and dehydration before cleaning begins.

Working in biohazard suits, clinicians induce the birds to swallow charcoal to absorb any oil in their systems. But for many, the treatment comes too late.

“Some birds have already suffered irreversible neurological deficits,” said Michael Ziccardi, a veterinarian at the center. “Many are depressed and suffer from seizures. We like it when the birds try to get away from us. But many just lie there with their heads down and their wings out.”

Common murres spend most of their lives swimming at sea and rarely come in contact with people, so the process of oil removal can be fatally stressful.

“Some birds have literally died of fright,” Michaels said. “It just breaks my heart to see that.”

The birds undergo a series of tub washes with clean water and a 1% solution of Dawn dishwashing liquid, which volunteers say works better than any other product. Cleansing each bird can take 45 minutes and require 300 gallons of water.

The waterfowl are then moved into a large heated room reeking of oil and the fish fed to the birds. With the squawk of the anxious creatures, the room has the din of a hospital neonatal ward.

There they spend several days in net-bottomed cages warmed by hair dryers. They are eventually eased back into water, and the healthiest birds are tagged and released, Ziccardi said.

While state and federal officials seek to solve the ocean riddle, naturalists continue to look for better ways to protect birds from the often ghastly effects of oil spills.

“While the rest of world goes about its business, we see these birds,” said Jay Holcomb, executive director of the International Bird Rescue Research Center. “Whether this oil is coming from somebody dumping bilge or from old sunken wreckage, we’re worried that this is going to become an annual event.

“If that happens, we could wipe out an entire species of birds.”