March 13, 2007
State officials complete enquiries into seabird deaths
Hundreds of terns, most unable to fly, died in Long Beach Harbor last summer when their nesting area aboard two barges was disturbed.
State wildlife officials said they have forwarded the results of a seven-month investigation into the deaths of hundreds of young seabirds last summer to the Long Beach city attorney's office for prosecution.
Elegant Tern, copyright Julien Gernigon
More than 500 terns - slim seabirds related to gulls but in this case mostly too young to fly - plummeted off two privately owned barges in the Long Beach Harbor in late June.
Twenty-five birds survived what a barge owner called an unfortunate mistake and what environmentalists across the country called "Terngate."
Many environmentalists had said state and federal wildlife officials should have realized that the barges had, over time, become a tern nesting site worthy of protection. They had also grown frustrated with the length of the inquiry.
"The case required a lengthy investigation," said Lt. Kent Smirl of the California Department of Fish and Game. "But it's not going away. We've done an excellent investigation, one of the best the department has ever done in Long Beach."
Smirl, whose agency led the probe that also involved the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said he expects charges to be filed by Long Beach prosecutors.
Long Beach city prosecutor John Fentis declined to comment. Smirl's office declined to identify who might be charged or the owner of the barges.
However, in an interview Wednesday, Ralph Botticelli, owner of San Diego-based Point Loma Maritime Services, said the incident was "all an honest and unfortunate mistake." His company was hired to move two barges with a tugboat to Santa Barbara for a fireworks display.
Initial reports suggested that the tugboat crew had used high-pressure hoses to destroy the nesting Caspian and Elegant Terns, which had become a tourist attraction for cruise ship operators.
The delicate, skittish birds are protected under federal law, authorities said, and it is a misdemeanor to disturb them. Animal cruelty is a felony in California. The deaths brought an end to a significant colony of terns established on barges that for months had been moored hundreds of yards offshore.
But Botticelli, 39, said neither the barges nor his tugboat were equipped with "steam cleaners or high-pressure hoses" for the moving operation. As he described it, the incident began when his crew - a captain and a deckhand - unintentionally "spooked the birds" with their approach.
"The birds just kamikazied off the side," he said. "That's what goes on in the harbor. It's everyday business: people working hard to feed their families. They had no idea there were birds on there. He said the barges "had no walls or railings to keep anything contained."
He added, "My crew actually saved two that didn't make it over and took them to a rescue center."
Bird rescuers, however, said that although some of the terns were old enough to walk, many others were newly hatched and unable to stand and must have been forced into the water.
The first barge never made it to Santa Barbara. Coast Guard officials ordered that it turn back to Long Beach after they discovered that it lacked proper certification. "The Coast Guard ordered us to return the barge to exactly where we got it," recalled Botticelli, who was in Montana at the time. "By telephone, I said, 'Are you sure you want us to take it back? There's another barge there, and it might have more birds on it."
Botticelli added: "They said, 'Take it back.' So we did that. It was about 3 in the morning. I don't know what happened after that."
But Erin Kellogg, assistant manager of the International Bird Rescue Research Center in San Pedro, said she will never forget "the day we got a call from lifeguards about dead birds washing up on shore. A little while later, I stepped out on the sand to find the shoreline littered with baby tern bodies."
"We were crying as we collected their bodies, many of which were mutilated after being smacked and rolled around in the waves," she said. "Twenty-seven were found alive - battered and bruised and in shock with low blood pressure and hypothermia. Of those, two were euthanized because they had severe wing fractures."
Two days later, more washed up along the surf line in the same area. "We surveyed the second barge with scopes," said Cristina Verduzco, a staff worker at the center, "and saw that it was empty except for a few parent terns searching for their babies."
The barges were an ideal habitat free of predators for terns, which can be distinguished from gulls by their pointed wings and bills and their feeding technique of plunging into the water for prey.
"We want whoever did this brought to justice," Kellogg said. "If this goes unpunished, I'm afraid to think of what else will be found
acceptable."
Jay Holcomb, director of the bird rescue center, agreed. "I'm excited the case is not being dropped, as some had feared," he said. "We would like to get reimbursed for the cost of caring for those birds and for the emotional hell my staff went through collecting all those dead baby birds."
The International Fund for Animal Welfare was offering a $10,000 reward for information on who was responsible for destroying the nesting colonies.
By Louis Sahagun
Times Staff Writer
Posted by Surfbirds at 02:24 PM | Comments (0)
April 15, 2006
Toxic algae off W Coast US is killing off brown pelicans
April 2006-- San Pedro, CA -- Pelicans are falling victim of the same toxic bloom of ocean algae that's sickening sea lions and also making shellfish unfit for human consumption, wildlife rescuers said Wednesday.
More than forty Brown Pelicans have been taken to the International Bird Rescue Research Center in San Pedro in the past week, 18 of those dead on arrival and the rest receiving treatment. Many more are dying in the wild, either at sea or on inaccessible jetties, center officials said.
A neurotoxin produced by the algae makes its way up the food chain to the pelicans and marine mammals and can result in seizures and death for the wildlife. Meanwhile, the state Department of Health Services issued a warning against the consumption of certain sport-harvested mussels, and parts of anchovies, sardines, lobsters and crabs. The shellfish and fish are unfit for people and their pets due to the toxic algae bloom.
Brown Pelican, Mexico, Acapolco January 2002 © Terry Lunn from the Surfbirds Galleries
The poisoning has misdirected some pelicans to places like Commerce and Hollywood, farther inland than they would normally go. Others are just dropping from the sky. "They become very disoriented, they fly in different directions, they even fall out of the sky," said IBRRC Executive Director Jay Holcomb. "Yesterday we got one out of a parking lot in San Pedro."
The first signs of "domoic acid" poisoning started showing up in February among sea lions. Where possible, the animals are taken to the Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro. Now that center's next-door neighbor at Fort MacArthur, the bird center, is starting to take in sick pelicans exhibiting the head-bobbing, shaking symptoms characteristic of domoic acid poisoning.
Posted by Surfbirds at 08:18 PM | Comments (0)
January 10, 2006
Winter storms bring Red Phalaropes to Northern California Coast
IBRRC has great success rehabilitating birds rescued from beaches
Red phalaropes wearing their winter plumage swim in pools at IBRRC Cordelia IBRRC photo
January 5 – 2006 -- Thousands of red phalaropes, rarely seen on land except when breeding in the Arctic, landed on the coast of Northern California in late December. Most were weak and starving, looking for food in marshes, creeks, and even backyards. The small birds were probably forced in by strong westerly winds that came with a series of powerful storms that hit Northern California the last part of December, 2005. Groups of up to 1,200 birds were reported seeking refuge along the coast.
International Bird Rescue Research Center in Cordelia, CA (Solano County) cared for 90 red phalaropes and achieved great success rehabilitating them. Only eight of the birds died. Most of the birds were rescued from beaches by IBRRC staff.
Weak and starving, the birds were immediately hydrated and warmed in warm water therapy pools, then fed meal worms and krill. They ate voraciously and quickly gained weight and strength. After intensive care, the birds continue rehabilitation in specially designed cold water pools with overflow to keep their feathers perfectly clean and oil free.
Thirty birds were deemed ready for release on January 5, 2006. The others will be released when they achieve normal weight and are waterproof. The birds are banded with numbered USFWS metal bands before release.
The red phalarope is a small bird rarely seen on land other than during spring when they migrate to Alaska to raise their young. Experts surmise the birds were suffering from a lack of food in the mid-ocean locales they frequent, either due to warmer ocean temperatures or the simple fact that the storms have churned the seas, making food scarce.
The birds feed by spinning the surface of the water with their lobed feet. For most of the year, phalaropes live at sea, principally off the coasts of southern South America and Africa. Red phalaropes are occasionally seen in the Bay Area during particularly harsh winters, but never before in numbers like these.
Posted by Surfbirds at 04:04 AM | Comments (0)
June 09, 2005
Gift your Dad a wild life this Fathers Day
Holidays like Fathers Day always present the “what to give Dad†gift dilemma. The wildlife experts at International Bird Rescue Research Center are hoping kids will look beyond ties and toolboxes and log on to their website to adopt a live duck, heron, egret or pelican for dad. Best part is he doesn’t have to care for it.Â
Adopters don’t actually get the bird, but they do get a beautiful official certificate for the species they adopt, with the band number of their bird and the date and place of release. With over 500 orphans at the center, and another one thousand expected, IBRRC’s the adoption program is a way to help defray the cost of raising thousands of orphaned waterfowl so they can be returned to the wild. Every bird IBRRC releases gets a Federal band put on its leg. The number on the band identifies the bird for life.Â
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“What’s so great about this program is that it allows the public to be a part of what we do,†said IBRRC Director, Jay Holcomb. “Hopefully it makes people feel a little empowered, just by the fact one bird is out there, that is theirs.â€Â
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Although pelican adoptions go for $200, ducklings can be adopted for twenty five dollars, and herons and egrets for fifty dollars. Adoptions include a one-year IBRRC membership.Â
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Banded birds become lifetime subjects of study, and provide a great amount of useful data for researchers. IBRRC is one of only a few rehabilitation centers in the US that is part of the USFWS Federal Banding Program. Since 1972, IBRRC has banded over 50,000 birds.
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Details on IBRRC and their adoption program can be found on their website at www.ibrrc.org or by calling 707-207-0380 extension 109.
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Posted by Surfbirds at 06:23 AM | Comments (0)
December 10, 2002
Prestige Update
(Pontevedra, Spain - December 10, 2002)
Jay Holcomb, Director of International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBRRC) and the IFAW ER Team Leader, said, "This is what we have been waiting for since the first birds arrived. It is at last some good news in what has been a wildlife tragedy. Holcomb and members of IBRRC's specially trained oil spill response team has been in Spain since November 16th. They are currently caring for over 300 live birds, with more arriving daily.
"It has been difficult to find a location where the birds could be released because the whole coast in this part of Spain is getting oil washed ashore. In consultation with all the Spanish experts we have chosen this area of Portugal because it already has good colonies of birds and it is not too far for us to transport them."
About 40 birds will be loaded onto a truck at the center at 8am for a five-hour journey to Portugal where they will be released at Bahia de Setubal. It is necessary to take the birds so far away because the oil has affected the entire coastline of Galicia in northwest Spain.
The birds being released are razorbills, guillemots, puffins, loons, scoters and gulls, which are the first at the center to be successfully rehabilitated.
They are being released by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW www.ifaw.org) with the help of the local environment authority Xunta. The birds have been cared for at the main wildlife rehabilitation center for the crisis, which is being run in Pontevedra by IFAW's Emergency Relief Team.
Since the start of the crisis three weeks ago hundreds of birds have arrived at the center covered in oil and suffering from hypothermia and dehydration. The IFAW ER Team first stabilizes the birds with fluids and food fed by tube, and once they are strong enough they are washed and dried, before being put into recovery pools to regain their waterproofing. The center is currently caring for 334 birds.
The IFAW ER Team in Pontevedra has vets and wildlife rehabilitation experts from eight countries around the world and about 50 local volunteers.
Daily reports from the field are located IFAW's website at
More information about IBRRC and response team bios can be found at
www.ibrrc.org
Karen Benzel
PR/Media Relations
International Bird Rescue Research Center
831-622-7588 phone
www.ibrrc.org
Posted by Surfbirds at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)
November 22, 2002
New rehabilitation centre for Prestige Disaster
PONTEVEDRA, Spain,
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW www.ifaw.org) and Xunta, the regional wildlife authority for north west Spain, have today opened a new rehabilitation centre to help save the wildlife that is suffering following the oil slick from the sunken tanker Prestige.
The temporary centre has already taken in its first 50 sea birds and by tomorrow another 100 are expected to arrive. The birds are being transferred from two other rehabilitation facilities that have acted as collection points.
"This new centre is vital if we are to save the birds that have already been rescued and those that are now coming ashore," said Jay Holcomb, leader of IFAW's Emergency Relief Team that is working at the oil spill. "Our other great concern is that there is a vast slick just off the coast at present and if that comes ashore we are going to have a large number of oiled birds needing to be rescued and rehabilitated."
"It is critical that the birds are given the right treatment if they are to survive. Many are extremely weak and this new facility will provide their best chance of making it. They are suffering from hypothermia, and dehydration when they arrive. Our experienced rehabilitators, which include veterinarians, can now provide the care they need."
The rehab centre has been established in a building provided by the forestry department in Pontevedra, close to the 100 km of coastline that has been affected by the spill. It includes a dedicated kitchen with freezers to prepare food for the birds, a stabilization room with holding pens where they are tubed with fluids, facilities for blood tests, a wash and rinse area, and recovery pools.
IFAW's Holcomb added: "The birds are firstly stabilized by getting their temperatures back up to acceptable levels and by being tubed fluids. They are then fed fluids and food until blood tests, which check for infection and anemia, show they are strong enough to be washed. Next they need to recover their waterproofing and recondition in tanks prior to their being released back into the wild. This process depends on the state of each bird, but can take anything from several days to a few weeks.
"Finding somewhere to release the birds will be difficult with so much of this coast affected by the spill. We will take the advice of the local wildlife experts to determine where best to do this."
Since the Prestige sank more than 160 birds have been rescued, including gannets, razorbills, cormorants, guillemot, kittiwake, and gulls. The seas around the coastal islands close to Pontevedra is a national maritime park and one of the country's most important areas for migratory birds and other marine wildlife.
Karen Benzel
PR/Media Relations
International Bird Rescue Research Center
831-622-7588 phone
www.ibrrc.org
Posted by Surfbirds at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)
August 25, 2002
Dishwashing liquid - kind to your feathers!
Dawn dishwashing liquid today (August 14th 2002) launched a national campaign, called Save-A-Duck, to involve Americans in the effort to rescue wildlife from the effects of oil spills. From today through to December 31st, consumers can help raise funds for two leading animal rescue groups when they purchase Dawn. Link to Story >>
Posted by Surfbirds at 07:23 PM | Comments (0)