Following major spills around the world, experts often claim to identify the reasons behind the incident, and make changes to regulations to ensure that such accidents cannot happen again. Whilst such measures should be commended, it does allow for complacency to return once more. It is therefore essential to have adequate contingency plans to deal with such emergencies, and plans that will be effective in all weather conditions. Most accidents occur in rough weather, and contingency plans must be able to operate under such conditions. It is amazing how many rescue plans cannot be put into operation following a spillage, because they can only be executed in fair weather.
Penguins are amongst the most sensitive of birds to marine oil pollution.
Being flightless and having to surface regularly to breath, they are unable to avoid being coated by oil in their vicinity, even when in the open ocean. In addition, because penguins' line of sight is at sea level, they are often unable to see surface oil ahead of them until its too late. Penguins oiled by operational discharges are usually coated out at sea, without the oil ever being noticed on the beaches. International attention is only drawn to the affects of major oil spills, when birds become polluted ashore in large numbers, but in actual fact the daily mortality of penguins by small scale discharges is far more damaging than a one-off disaster. Oiled penguins that have been rescued and cleaned, have been shown to have a much higher survival rate than other seabirds.