Press release Bow Jubail – old page!

Notification On Saturday June 23 the tanker Bow Jubail owned by the Norwegian shipping company Odfjell hit a scaffolding in the Port of Rotterdam. 200 Tonnes of oil spilled into the harbour. Vogelklas Karel Schot, the Rotterdam-based Wildlife Centre was notified that afternoon. Anticipating hundreds of oiled birds, they immediately notified wildlife response ngo’s SON-RESPONS and Sea Alarm. Ecologists sent out to assess the species and number of birds contaminated, reported that at least a thousand Mute swans were involved. Rijkswaterstaat on Sunday 24th June gave a green light to it’s contigency plan for oiled wildlife and started setting up of a central facility where all the oiled birds could be rehabilitated or euthanised if necessary. The Maeslantkering in Hoek van Holland was chosen as the location for the facility. Both national and international oiled wildlife experts were mobilised on Sunday by SON-RESPONS and Sea Alarm.

Field The catching of oiled birds started spontaneously on Sunday 24th by the public and responders. The Rotterdam harbour is part of the Nieuwe Waterweg  a vast ecological system. By Sunday evening over 300 oiled swans were caught and brought to Vogelklas Karel Schot, wildlife centre De Wulp and to an temporary forward holding centre in Maassluis. Tuesday 26th the temparoray facility was ready to receive the first groups of swans from the temporary holding in Maassluis, followed by the swans from Karel Schot. The catching of the  remaining oiled swans required boats with crew, which became a operational exercise in itself. By July 4th rouhghly 500 swans were housed in the central facility.  Through the regular monitoring by ecologists it became clear that a lot of the contaminated swans had migrated to other areas.

Facility Friday 29th the washing section within the facility and a set of outside pools were operational and the first swans were washed and put on pools. Over the following 4 days over 200 swans were washed. Extra pools were built starting July 5th. By July 8th a number of swans walked to the extra pools.

Visual report  https://www.son-respons.nl/visueel-verslag-olievogelrespons-bow-jubail/