Can You Help Oil Spill Wildlife Rescue Efforts?

In the face of mounting frustration over the month-old BP oil spill that continues to gush oil into the Gulf of Mexico, it's understandable that you might want to load up the car and head for the coast to help out. We feel the burn. Without HAZMAT certifications, professional wildlife care experience or other needed skills, however, your energy may not be best spent on the beaches.

Experts coordinating rescue efforts for oil-ravaged birds, sea turtles, dolphins and other wildlife caution that untrained volunteers could do more harm than good and risk exposing themselves to the toxic oil and chemicals still being spewed into the waters.

We've all heard about the Dawn dish detergent method of cleaning animals that have been caught in oil spills. The process seems fairly straightforward — but it's far from the only consideration. Birds and wildlife must first be safely rescued and transported to safety. After cleaning, they must be professionally tended while recovering. Then they must be released into safe areas where the risk of recontamination is lowest. All these steps require professional supervision. So while cleanup does require many hands — as many as four people and 300 gallons of water per bird — the need for certified help is even more pressing.

Are you certified in HAZMAT or HAZWOPER? What about wildlife recovery and transport, handling or rehabilitation? Are you certified in first aid and CPR? Are you skilled in boat handling, GPS tracking and bird identification? Can you walk several miles, swim confidently, speak Spanish? Do you have a vehicle capable of carrying equipment and birds? These are just some of the needs of the agencies coordinating volunteer efforts.

Whether you're trained or not, Deepwater Horizon Response (the official site of the response effort) recommends contacting specific state disaster coordination agencies for the affected states. The National Audubon Society is accepting volunteer registrations on its web site. In Louisiana, LA Gulf Response is coordinating efforts from the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, the National Audubon Society, the National Wildlife Federation and The Nature Conservancy.

Alabama residents who wish to help should call the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program at (251) 431-6409 or the Mobile Baykeeper at (251) 433-4229. Save Our Seabirds in Florida asks volunteers to call (941) 388-3010. You can also register to help at Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research.

Experts stress that volunteers should register with an agency online or by phone and not show up on site unless they've been specifically notified to come assist.

Of course, there are plenty of other ways for you to help.

Donate: Buy a special edition bottle of Dawn (look for the animal on the label), then head to Dawn's website to enter the code from your bottle. For every code entered, Dawn will donate $1 (with a goal of $500,000) to wildlife groups like the Marine Mammal Center and the International Bird Rescue Research Center. Have something more substantial in mind? Put larger donations to work through any of the groups already mentioned in this article.

Sponsor a volunteer: Do you know any local veterinarians, zoo staffers or wildlife experts who would like to make the trip to help out? Contribute (or create!) a fund to help get them there. You can get invaluable animal handling experience of your own if you volunteer to help pick up the slack at their workplace while they're gone.

Report oiled wildlife and oil damage: If you live along the Gulf Coast and spot oiled wildlife in need of rescue or notice oil damage, report it online or call 1-866-557-1401 for oiled wildlife (messages are checked hourly), 1-800-440-0858 for oil damage, or 1-866-448-5816 for oiled shorelines.

One final update: We previously reported that you could send your pet's fur to be made into hair mats to soak up the oil. Unfortunately, neither BP nor the Coast Guard seem to be using hair mats to ameliorate the oil spill and don't have any plans to begin. We guess it's back to the compost heap for your furry summer excess.

Photo credit: IBRRC