ORCAS ISLAND MARINE SCIENCE LECTURE SERIES
“OILED WILDLIFE AND THEIR CARE” WITH DR. MIKE ZICCARDI
On Tuesday, March 11, 2008, at 7 p.m. Dr. Michael Ziccardi of the UC Davis Oiled Wildlife Care Network will describe state of the art care that oiled wildlife now receives. Ziccardi, a wildlife veterinarian at the UC Davis Wildlife Health Center, is an expert on the care of oiled wildlife and is assisting Washington State in planning for oiled wildlife response.
The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill brought the fate of oiled wildlife to the forefront of American’s minds as images of oiled sea otters and birds blanketed the media. Quick, expedient and effective response is essential to saving lives during an oil spill. Since the Exxon Valdez spill, our readiness to respond to spills has grown substantially. The quality of care that oiled wildlife receives also has grown exponentially. The Oiled Wildlife Care Network is proud to have a 50-75% save rate of oiled animals helped. This high success rate can be attributed to step-by-step processes that oiled wildlife care professionals take in rehabilitating oiled wildlife. Much of the information used in these processes had been gained through active research focused on improving oiled animal care.
Major oil spills have the potential to cause extensive and long-term damage to Washington State’s natural resources, economy and quality of life and the San Juan Islands are at highest risk of major vessel spills. Over 10,000 ocean going vessels move about 15 billion gallons of oil through the Strait of Juan de Fuca annually. “We also have some of the region’s most amazing wildlife that will be impacted if there is a major oil spill,” says Joe Gaydos, Regional Director of the SeaDoc Society. “While prevention is most important, if we do have spill we want to make sure that we have the capacity to minimize the impact as much as possible and that includes state of the art oiled wildlife care.”
This is the sixth lecture of the 2007/08 season in Orcas Island’s marine science lecture series designed for the general public. The program begins at 7:00 PM at the Camp Orkila Marine Salmon Center and is free. Please park in the upper parking lot at Camp Orkila. Shuttle service from the parking lot to the talk is available before and after the lecture.
The 2007-2008 Marine Science Lecture Series is presented by program partners The SeaDoc Society (www.seadocsociety.org) and YMCA Camp Orkila ( www.seattleymca.org). It has been made possible through the generous support of Tom Averna / Deer Harbor Charters, Barbara Brown, The Gould Family Foundation and David and Virginia Ridgway. The final lecture in this series is scheduled for April 8th (Flippers for Feet: Pinnipeds of the Pacific Northwest).
