Drinking out of a fire hose - life on wildlife rescue barges

What a day!  It was a long, hot and eventful one for Cindy, Krista and me as we continued our journey through south Louisiana bearing witness to the Gulf oil disaster. We headed out early for Venice to hook up with Jeff Corwin, on contract with NBC news as their environmental correspondent for the next year, and a great board member of Defenders of Wildlife. Also on the day’s expedition was Joel Sartore, an award winning National Geographic photographer, on assignment to document the wildlife impacts of the spill for a Nat Geo feature this fall. In addition to being a top-notch wildlife photographer, Joel is also this year’s Spirit of Defenders’ award winner for citizen advocacy and will be honored at our annual fundraising dinner this coming September.

We all met at the Cypress Cove Marina to load up in boats once again piloted by out of work fisherman and marina owners.  Along for the ride were U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service folks on assignment from as far away as Alaska, Virginia, and California.  Rhonda Murgatroyd (managing director of Wildlife Response Services, now on contract with BP and charged with heading up the LA wildlife rescue response) was on the trip to share what they were doing to save wildlife along the LA coast.  As of Day 50 of the crisis, over 1,000 birds, 340 sea turtles and about 40 mammals had been collected in the Huoma Incident Command area stretching along the LA coast.  I found myself wondering the whole trip how many countless critters were still out there struggling in the Gulf and not being rescued.  Most likely many will not be rescued by the 50 plus boats deployed in the waters.

I was on the boat with Jeff Corwin and his NBC crew who are down here for as long as it takes to document what’s happening to wildlife in the Gulf for people all across the US and beyond.  I did some filming with Jeff and hopefully we’ll see it played for a national audience so our Defenders supporters can feel confident that we care and are doing our best to get our arms wrapped around this precedent-setting environmental and ecological disaster.  Jeff and I go way back to my days at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife and it was good to work with him again.

Once we left the marina area, we headed out to one of the four “wildlife rescue” barges in the Gulf.  We didn’t know what to expect, so it was really helpful and informative to see it in action.  As our boats approached and tied up to the barge, I jumped off and immediately was greeted by the “barge boss,” a Fish and Wildlife biologist from the Sacramento, CA office who I hadn’t seen in years.  While it was great to get reacquainted with Mark Littlefield, we both lamented that it was just really hard to find ourselves in this place at this time with no end to this wildlife disaster in sight.  He was on Day 2 of the job of supervising the wildlife rescue operation in the area, and it was clear that the poor fella was going flat out to cope with the “drinking out a fire hose” feeling that greeted him on his arrival less than 48 hours before.

There was a FWS administrative support person who was down from the Cookeville, TN office to deal with the overwhelming paperwork associated with time-keeping, pay and cycling of personnel.  It was stunning to see all that she was doing and the complexity involved in what most people think is a mundane, straightforward operation.  A refuge law enforcement office from Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge in FL was zipping around non-stop, bouncing from the computers where he was mapping coordinates to the radio, taking information being relayed by helicopter pilots and translating the specific information to rescue boats on the water working feverishly to get to an oiled pelican in trouble on the water and unable to fly. I felt like a spectator watching an action movie as the barge was humming with activity and the focus was pretty intense. In the middle of it all were mounds of food being shoved at helicopter pilots and others as they came through the doors to refuel themselves and take a quick break from the relentless flying back and forth as they searched for wildlife in stress.

I spent some time with the man who was contracted to run the support elements of the barge.  He was a happy older fella who told me his job was to keep these amazing and dedicated professionals fed, cool and clean and take as much pressure off of them as possible as they worked tirelessly on the challenge before them. Chefs stay on board, cooking up meals and desserts to rival any 4 star restaurant in the DC area. The barge is kept cool – below 70 degrees – around the clock to help cool the workers down and rejuvenate them when they come in from the field wilted and exhausted from the intense heat and humidity. Their clothes are washed, dried and folded outside their doors each night so they don’t have to deal with the daily tasks of living other than keeping themselves safe and moving forward.

We left the barge and headed by boat out into the Gulf to a few of the islands that were being monitored for birds.  Rescue boats had a saturated bird already in a “dog crate” by the time we made it out there.  We drifted up to the workers in hazmat suits and gloves (in 105+ temperatures) and they lifted the crate so we could peer in at the oiled pelican in obvious distress.  They were preparing to stabilize the bird for quick transport back to shore where a transfer vehicle was waiting to take it to the Fort Jackson bird rehabilitation facility about 10 miles up the road.  The pelican was totally black and it seemed iffy to me if it would even make it to treatment.  So sad…

From there, we moved along the jetties where the juxtaposition of healthy vibrant pelicans and others in various stage of “oil” were perched along the rocks.  The clean ones were so beautiful, and we talked at length about what an amazing recovery this southeastern bird had made over the past decade. It truly is an Endangered Species Act success story and the idea we may be potentially snatching defeat from the jaws of victory was just gut-wrenching.  Next to the healthy birds sat numerous ones in various stages of “dark” from tan to light brown to almost black.  It was sad to watch the birds trying to preen the oil from their feathers or stretch their wings as if they had hope of shaking the crud off of them.  Those birds are definitely on the watch list for the crews monitoring the area.  They sure didn’t look good to me.

After some more filming, we finally headed back to shore.  After some briefings and meetings and another quick meal, we headed back to New Orleans, exhausted, both physically and emotionally, wondering how this area will ever recover.  As we drove up the only road back to New Orleans, it was lined with oil refineries and processing facilities.  That, combined with the pipelines we saw criss-crossed throughout the marshes we boated through, magnified just how dependent the coastal communities are on the jobs provided by the industry.  The conflicts won’t settle out for a long time, I’m sure. I’m also sure that the ecological story of the Gulf is only at the beginning. We have not even begun to understand the impacts of this disaster and we need to be vigilant in making sure none of us forgets this very special region of our country.