Oil slick endangers birds
Canadian Coast Guard says it is likely diesel fuel from a grounded vessel’s bilge pump
There is concern for baby puffins and other seabirds within the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve due to an oil slick discovered Friday off the Southern Shore coast.
There is concern for baby puffins and other seabirds within the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve due to an oil slick discovered Friday off the Southern Shore coast.
Jeannine Winkel of the Molly Bawn Whale and Puffin Tours discovered the oil slick Friday afternoon during a tour.
Winkel immediately called the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and the Canadian Coast Guard.
“It is a massive oil slick, about half a mile by two miles and seemed to be expanding between Green Island and Great Island,” Winkel said. “There are a lot of seabirds in that area.”
Winkel said an American swordfishing boat ran aground near Great Island Friday morning and was reportedly leaking oil.
“We are not sure if the oil from that ship is the oil slick we saw, but it’s possible,” she said.
Mike Shortall of the tour company said the slick comes at the worst possible time for baby puffins.
“This is right in the middle of puffin fledging season,” he said. “We have been catching them every night on the puffin patrol. Now we have an oil slick out there where we are putting the baby birds.”
According to the tour company’s website, the Puffin Patrol is a group of volunteers devoted to rescuing puffins and safely releasing them back into the Atlantic Ocean. The Witless Bay Puffin and Petrel Patrol monitors the roads at night to rescue lost puffin chicks. The next morning the puffins are weighed, measured, banded and released in the ecological reserve.
The Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre (JRCC) Halifax said Friday it received a call that the fishing vessel Eyelander broadcasted a mayday call after it ran aground near Green Island, southeast of Witless Bay.
The vessel reported a discharge of diesel fuel into the water from a bilge pump. All five people on the vessel were taken aboard a fast-rescue craft from the nearby West Aquarius oil rig and transported to Bay Bulls.
The Eyelander was later pulled from the rocks and proceeded under its own power to Witless Bay.
Canadian Coast Guard Environmental Response conducted an assessment and recovered some of the fuel, but most was unrecoverable and dispersed with wave and tidal action.
The fishing vessel’s company deployed a containment boom and hired a dive company to assess the vessel.
Canadian Coast Guard Environmental Response is continuing to monitor the situation with assistance from the Canadian Wildlife Service. Transport Canada is investigating the grounding incident.