Fifteen years of bird counting data will help scientists with the environmental assessment of the oil spill, thanks to the Squamish Environmental Conservation Society (SECS) and their dedicated work to create the longest, continuous bird count in B.C.
Meg Fellowes is the president of the society, which began its monthly bird count and trail building in the Squamish Estuary in 1992 to stop the area being developed for a BC Rail port.
"We wanted to do a couple of things," said Fellowes. "We wanted to get people in there so they were aware of what a beautiful area it was and how important it was. We also wanted to create some information, so we started doing the bird count."
The port never went through but now the data collected, consistently, every month since, will be useful to the people in charge of assessing the environmental impact of the recent oil spill.
The principle owner of the local business Cascade Environmental, Mike Nelson, and his company are working with Focus Environmental, Inc., for the owners of the ship the Westwood Anette, which dump 29,000 litres of rogue oil into the Squamish waterfront on August 4.
He said the SECS data was valuable information for their assessment.
"It is immensely helpful," he said. "They are a bunch of incredibly reliable volunteers. We are using their data to see what the typical number of birds is and what the seasonal variability should like."
The SECS conducted their monthly bird count on Sunday, August 13, approximately nine days after the spill and Fellowes said the findings did not produce unusual results.
"The numbers look pretty normal, but we are interested in the long term. You have to look at trends," she said. "We will be very interested to see what the numbers are like for September and October."
Although unable to give specific numbers, Fellowes said approximately 20 per cent of the waterbirds counted, mainly Canada Geese and Common Mergansers, appeared to be oiled. She said the concern was not necessarily the population of these birds; rather she was worried how their contamination would affect other species.
"We have problems with Canada Geese numbers so they are not a great concern. It is when they move into other areas and are eaten by turkey vultures, bald eagles, bears, and coyotes that there is a real concern," she said. "The population is not in great difficulty, no one wants them to suffer, but to spend a great deal recovering [Canadian Geese] does not make a lot of sense."Fellowes said birds that migrate during the winter from as far north as the Artic, stopped at the Squamish Estuary on their way to Central and South America. She said species of these birds were present on Sunday, indicating that fall migration was happening. Fellowes also said other aspects of the spill seem to be less harmful then she expected.
"One of the things I think is really important is that it looks like the oil didn't penetrate the soil too much," she said. "I am not saying if it had not been done faster it would have been better, but if it had been slower it could have been worse. My estimate is that 10 per cent of sedge meadows have been affected."
Despite what Fellowes saw on Sunday she warns that the assessment cannot be done in one week.
"We are going to have to be monitoring this for a number of years," she said"Oil is persistent in the environment, not like the shock of the last year's CN spill where it killed 100 per cent of everything and moved on. Oil is persistent in the environment and will likely have long-term effects."
Fifteen volunteers took part in the count last Sunday. The count area covers from the outer estuary south of Squamish terminals, north to upper end of Crescent Slough; and in the east from Highway 99 and the Mamquam Blind Channel to the Squamish River in the west. The count takes four to five hours. The 15 years of data is available to anyone who wishes to read it by visiting www.squamishecology.org.
