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October 08, 2002
Prestige Disaste
The RSPB's BirdLife International Partner in Spain, the Spanish Ornithological Society (Sociedad Espa de Ornitolog SEO/BirdLife, has been on alert since the incident happened. Volunteer ornithologists recorded the first groups of oiled seabirds coming ashore on Friday and a full-scale survey was conducted yesterday. They counted more than 250 individual oiled seabirds of 18 different species. The most commonly affected were Yellow-legged Gull, Black-backed Gull, Shag, Black-headed Gull, Northern Gannet and Razorbill, and to a lesser extent Common Guillemot and Manx Shearwater.
At this time of year, thousands of seabirds, including gannets, shearwaters, gulls, and divers from further north in Europe, including from UK colonies, are migrating to winter quarters via the Galician coast. Among the species most threatened by the spill is the Balearic Shearwater, a Critically Endangered species endemic to the Balearic Islands, which moves from the Mediterranean to the Bay of Biscay to overwinter. These birds stop over south of Finisterre in order to rest and feed during their migratory journey.
The potential disaster precipitated by the foundering of the Prestige could be exacerbated if other petrol tankers take the opportunity to clean their tanks close to Cape Finisterre. Such illegal discharging, which is thought to have happened already in the immediate aftermath of the Prestige, has taken place previously following major oil spills, when boats exploit the opportunity of a major oil spill as a smokescreen to cover their illegal activities. To prevent this, SEO/BirdLife is calling on the authorities to keep a close watch on the movements of petrol tankers in the vicinity.
SEO/BirdLife argues, as did the RSPB when the oil tanker Erika sank off France, that it is necessary to establish, through international agreements, shipping exclusion zones in the most sensitive areas or areas that are high risk areas, where ocean-going traffic is managed or even prohibited. "This is a situation we've seen over and over again," said Dr Sharon Thompson, the RSPB's Marine Policy Officer. "An old single-hulled oil tanker breaks up in bad weather, dumping its cargo into sensitive waters and coastlines, leaving wildlife and fisheries-dependent communities to deal with the consequences. More needs to be done faster on the international stage if we're to prevent pollution like this in the future. We badly need sensitive areas to be designated to protect vulnerable costal regions like the Galician coast."
Approximately, every three years the coastlines of Europe are devastated by an oil tanker spilling its cargo. On this basis we will have to suffer another four spills before single-hulled tankers are phased out in 2015.
Today we are renewing our call to the UK Government to honour its pledge to introduce a network of Marine Environment High Risk Areas (MEHRAs), which would route dangerous vessels away from the UK's most sensitive coastal sites and most hazardous shipping areas.?
Posted by Surfbirds at October 8, 2002 11:18 PM
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