Discovery of sea duck 23 years after oil spill ‘made our year’
International Bird rescue capped off its year with the announcement of an incredible discovery: the longest-lived member of a species of sea duck that had survived an oil spill in Alaska 23 years earlier.
According to Russ Curtis — the technology manager and public relations lead at International Bird Rescue’s San Francisco Bay Center in Fairfield — a hunter had come across a deceased king eider sea duck on St. Paul Island in Alaska and reported the federal band number around its leg to the United States Geological Survey’s Bird Banding Lab. The information was later relayed to International Bird Rescue. Curtis said it is common for birds to be reported by hunters.
“We rely on hunters along with the general public to track these birds over time,” he said. “The hunters have been the folks that report the most because they often find the birds and the bands.”
However, another amazing discovery occurred when a closer look was taken at the number on the band. it was determined that this king eider had been oiled during the M/V Citrus Oil Spill in 1996 in Alaska’s Pribilof Islands near where it was discovered around St. Paul Island.
What’s more: this particular king eider was determined to be the longest-lived of its species, surpassing a 22-year-old, unoiled female eider that had been reported in Nunavut, Canada.
Curtis said that International Bird Rescue personnel were thrilled to come across an eider that had lived that long, especially after a traumatic situation.
“Any bird that goes through an oiling and the subsequent treatment and washing, it’s a stressful thing,” he said. “To get
those into care and then out of care and have it survive 23 years is truly remarkable.”
Male king eiders are distinguished by their black and white feathers, reddish-orange bills, bluish crowns and greenish cheeks. They are found in Arctic waters, often in remote areas near Alaska and Russia.
Following the 1996 oil spill, 186 birds — mostly eiders — were transported by a U.S. Coast Guard C-130 aircraft to International Bird Rescue’s Anchorage center, where they were cleaned, stabilized and flown back to St. Paul Island.
Curtis said that International Bird Rescue team members, including some at the Fairfield center, were heavily involved in rehabilitating the birds back then.
“I know at least one person who’s still around who responded to that spill,” he said.
Curtis said the employee told him he likely cared for the eider.
The king eider was the fourth to be reported through the Bird Banding Lab since 1996.
Curtis said the longevity of the eider was a testament to the importance of caring for wildlife after an oil spill.
“What we’ve always been underscoring is if you treat these birds with respect and good protocol and take good care of them, they can return to the wild after being oiled,” he said. “This is a testimony to the efforts we’ve been working on for almost 50 years now.”
“Not only were we able to help these sea ducks 23 years ago, but to have one survive and be reported, it just made our year,” he added.