Natural Resources Damage Assessment: Information on Study of Seabirds Killed by Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

The crude oil that spilled from the Exxon Valdez spread to more than 1,200 miles of Alaska coastline, including portions of national forests, parks, and wildlife refuges managed by the federal government. This coastline is rich in fish and wildlife, such as herring, salmon, sea otters, whales, bald eagles, and seabirds, and the spill killed large numbers of many wildlife species. Among the most conspicuous effects of the spill was the injury to sea- birds. Seabirds are vulnerable to oil spills because they spend much of their time foraging on the seas surface. When their plumage comes in contact with the oil, it loses buoyancy, causing many birds to drown. Birds that manage to avoid drowning may die from exposure oiled feathers provide poor insulation or from ingesting oil that they try to preen from their plumage. Following the oil spill, more than 36,000 dead seabirds were recovered, frozen, and kept in storage as evidence of the effects of the spill. According to federal officials, these dead birds probably represented only a small portion of the number actually killed. Other birds were thought to have sunk, decomposed, been scavenged by other animals, or in some other way become unrecoverable.