Silvia Gaus: Killing Oil Spill Birds Is More Humane Than Cleaning

treehugger.com:

One oil spill expert and animal biologist says that once birds are thoroughly oiled, the best course of action is to put them out of their misery. Even if all the crude is scrubbed from their feathers, she says, oiled birds are all but certain to die a long, painful death.

Read the whole story: treehugger.com

Comments

[andrewoman]

08:59 PM on 06/10/2010

Silvia Gaus needs to shut her pie hole! IBRRC (International Bird Rescue Research Center) has innovated oiled bird treatment to save birds 50-100% of the time, depending on various conditions in the region. Silvia's numbers on survival rates of rehabilitated birds are extremely outdated! IBRRC has spent years researching how to rehabilitate oiled birds. Silvia needs to shut up, as she is spouting a defeatist attitude to any news outlet that will listen to her. Her big mouth isn't helping these birds get the help they need. There needs to be much more done for oiled animals and her defeatist attitude isn't helping! I have read, in detail, how the birds are treated and why their survival rate has improved. In a nutshell, it has to do with de-stressing the birds as much as possible and responding to their stress appropriately, removing as much oil as possible, among other tools. Please go to www.ibrrc.com to see how they are saving birds. The response to the animals in distress is grossly insufficient as it is, so we don't need people like Silvia working against helping as many animals as possible. She needs to educate herself or crawl back into that hole she came out of!

[Scott McVarish]

02:31 AM on 06/09/2010

don't let another crisis pass without taking some action: http://www.causes.com/causes/494210/about?m=cfc9554f = President Obama, Kick BP's Ass!

[nickfromla]

09:32 PM on 06/08/2010

Check this out: BP Gas Station COVERING BP Logos in Pennsylvania!!!!!!! http://www.frequency.com/video/penn-bp-gas/99242

[zanzy]

09:08 PM on 06/08/2010

Gauss-the german scientist stating to just kill the oiled birds is wrong and is not using data from the US that shows that cleaning birds works.

Here is the link that disproves her claim, shows problems with the generalizabilty of her data and reveals that studies have been done showing the cleaned birds do survive.

http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2010/06/oiled_birds_to_kill_or_not_to.php

Moreover, it is irresponsible journalism to post gaus's claim only on your website, when the scientific evidence shows the opposite.

[HHUA]

11:58 PM on 06/08/2010

Thanks for that link. However, based on data even from that source I think I might still agree with Gauss where the heavily-oiled birds are concerned... For no other reason than the poor birds themselves.

[nellre]

05:52 PM on 06/08/2010

2 things.
Figure out a way to clean them without killing them (not easy)
Keep them in captivity and under observation until they're healthy again.