Oil Spill - Day 18

This will be a short note. If you hadn't heard a cargo ship hit the Bay Bridge in San Francisco Bay on Wednesday morning. It leaked some 58,000 gallons of fuel oil. Not as bad as crude oil, but still causing problems. Oil has made its way out of the Golden Gate and up along the coast. We've been having east winds which has made the oil slick move towards the island. We don't have oil in the water around the island, but it might reach us. We saw oiled birds on Thursday morning and did some more complete surveys today. There are a couple dozen oiled birds around the island, some having 90% of their bodies oiled. Unfortunately, we are not equiped or trained to deal with oiled birds, so we are doing what we can by documenting the number of oiled birds. If things get worse we'll have to get someone else out here to help. It's really sad to see these birds suffering and not being able to help.

Other than the spill island life is continuing to be great. When I get more time I'll write more about the cool stuff on the island.

Snot nosed weiner (Elephant Seal)