A pair of recent commentaries, one in Nature and one in The Scotsman, looked at the impacts of funding cuts in Scotland and Wales on long-term monitoring of seabird colonies. What does this have to do with response to oiled wildlife?
Good data on seabird populations from before an oil spill can be used to help estimate that spill's ongoing impacts on those populations, impacts which can be caused contamination of nesting sites by birds returning from oiled areas, loss of food resources due to the oil, and decreased reproductive success, among others. Without multiyear pre-spill data it is difficult to prove that the oil was a primary cause of a population’s decline as otherwise damage assessment may only take numbers of birds found dead on the beach and those taken in to care into consideration.
In addition, estimates of total number of birds impacted during a spill are often disputed (see Deepwater Horizon mortality estimate controversy) thus having as much pre-spill data as possible aids in providing a more accurate assessment of avian losses For example the two commentators make note of the changing status of kittiwakes on St. Kilda in Scotland and guillemots on Skomer Island in Wales, based on studies going back 30 or more years. Similar data from colonies of European shags in northwest Spain provided evidence of ongoing impacts from the Prestige incident in 2002.
The commentary in The Scotsman, authored by Dr. Richard Luxmoore, Senior Nature Conservation Advisor at the National Trust of Scotland, compares the potential lack of data, should funding not be restored, to planning authorities using maps from the 1990s to highlight the importance of such funding. The commentary by Dr. Tim Birkhead of the University of Sheffield in Nature, an international science journal, emphasizes the need to understand all aspects of population dynamics so that when one of those dynamics changes it is easier to assess its impacts. A major oil spill would fall into the category of a change in population dynamics. For example, a spill during breeding season might result in the complete failure of a colony to reproduce during that year. How the loss of one year-class impacts the overall population can only be assessed by comparing year on year.
While both authors have a personal interest in seeing funding restored for their projects, it’s not hard to see how important such projects are for oiled wildlife impact assessment. Dr. Birkhead’s laboratory has tackled the problem head on with a crowd funding effort at JustGiving. Funds for the coming season have been secured and any funds raised beyond that will be used to ensure future years’ work.
Resources:
Birkhead. T.2014 Stormy outlook for long-term ecology studies. Nature. Accessed online 3.12.14
Luxmoore. R. 2104. Hostile undercurrent in signs from the sea. The Scotsman. Accessed online 3.12.14