Linda's Canadian Adventure

Liters and liters of dish washing detergent were used the last couple of days. Not to do the dishes, but to clean the bird that were covered with oil due to the oil spill in Burnaby. I helped taking care of the birds and cleaning them.

It was very special for me to help with this. An environmental disaster happened in my neighborhood, animals are victims and I can do something to improve the situation a little bit.

Kinder-Morgan is paying to clean the birds and a team from the US was hired from Focus Wildlife , they take care of the washing. The Oiled Wildlife Society of BC is responsible for the rehabilitation of the birds with the help of volunteers, and I’m one of them.

The birds that are brought in are exhausted, dehydrated and ill. Birds preen their feathers daily to keep them healthy and aligned, doing this they ingest the toxic oil. Moreover, the feathers are no longer waterproof because of the oil and they get hypothermia. The birds stay indoors for the first few days to get stronger. They ingest activated charcoal to bind the oil in their digestive system. If they are dehydrated or malnutritioned they get extra food and water. They can’t stay indoors too long because their feet aren’t designed to be out of the water for too long.

The washing procedure has a number of stages. First the oiled feathers are treated with mineral oil. This breaks down the crude oil and makes it soft. Then the bird is put in a tub with warm water and a lot of dish washing detergent. The feathers aren’t scrubbed, but systematically all feathers will be covered with the soap so it can do its work and bind the oil. When the water is black from the oil the bird goes into the next tub with warm water and soap. This will be repeated 6-8 times.

Ken is soaping up a Canada Goose and I’m holding the head so the eyes are covered and it can breath.

This process is extremely stressful for the birds and a goose is very strong. The head is carefully treated with a soft tooth brush to prevent the soap getting in the eyes or airway.

A seagull is treated here.

The third step is rinsing. All the soap has to come out of the feathers and at the same time the birds is checked for oil residue.

Bruce and Crystel are rinsing a seagull, it looks very sad soaking wet. Bruce has helped in Alaska after the Exon-Valdez disaster to clean the birds, now he travels all over the world to do this work. Ken and Bruce cleaned 20,000 penguins in South Africa!

The clean birds have to dry under a blow dryer. They have help the drying by performing their normal preening routine so the hot air gets underneath every feather. The next day they can go outside in the pool and they love that.

Friday morning all the press was invited to have a look. During the bird washing two tv camera’s were pointed at me and photo camera’s. At night I was on the news for about 0.1 second, but more importantly, there is interest in this work.