Cargo ship's oil 'could have affected 10,000 seabirds' » Environment » 24dash.com

Up to 10,000 seabirds could have been hit by oil from a grounded ship, it was feared today.

So far, in the region of 1,000 affected birds have been collected since the stricken container vessel MSC Napoli was grounded off Sidmouth, east Devon, at the weekend.

Around 600 of these are likely to die, said the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

This morning, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) revealed that a slick has been formed from oil leaked from the Napoli on Tuesday.

The MCA said the slick was several miles long and 30 yards wide and attempts were being made to contain it with booms.

The agency does not think any more fuel is leaking as work continues to pump 3,500 tonnes of oil from the ship.

RSPB spokeswoman Sophie Atherton said the extent of the contamination of seabirds would be difficult to measure.

But she went on: "For every oiled bird ashore, there could be up to 10 times that number at sea.

"We just do not know how many birds have been affected by the oil."

The RSPCA said more than 500 seabirds had been treated at its West Hatch centre in Taunton, Somerset.

Some of those were being transferred to another of the charity's centres at Hastings, East Sussex, for rehabilitation and tests before being considered for release.

Spokeswoman Jo Barr said the birds had been collected from Paignton in south Devon to Chesil Beach in Dorset.

The birds were contaminated by between 60 and 200 tonnes of fuel oil which leaked from the Napoli.

This weekend a small army of RSPB staff and volunteers will scour around 100 miles of coastline and beaches between Slapton Sands in south Devon and Portland in Dorset for more oiled birds.

The Napoli was grounded off Sidmouth last weekend during a tow to Portland when it was feared she could go down.

The hull of the vessel, laden with more than 2,300 containers, was damaged a week ago by a storm 50 miles south of Cornwall - and her crew of 26 was rescued after abandoning ship.

The operation to pump out 3,500 tonnes of oil aboard the vessel is into its third day, and the clean-up of Branscombe Beach - now closed to the public after frenzied looting of 50 beached containers - is also under way.

Water sample results taken this week by the Environment Agency near the ship so far show no signs of pollution from the oil, pesticides or other chemicals from the vessel.

Samples taken by the agency at beaches from Exmouth, west of Branscombe, to Abbotsbury in Dorset to the east have been checked for more than 165,000 different man-made chemicals by the laboratory at Starcross, near Exeter.

Results show that so far there is no pollution from pesticides and other chemicals on the boat along the Devon and Dorset coastline. Further sampling will be carried out twice a week for the foreseeable future.

Samples of water washing up on to the beaches along the Devon and Dorset coast contain no oil.

Some oil has been washed up along the coast but the results suggest there is no ongoing pollution close to the shore at this stage.

The salvage company's contractors will be doing the beach clean-up.

Graham Green-Buckley, of the Environment Agency, said: "The northerly winds means that any oil discharged from the ship is being carried out to sea.

"These early results are encouraging but there is still a risk of pollution from the cargo or Napoli's oil, particularly while the oil is being removed by the contractors."

The Environment Agency is also taking and storing samples of mussels and limpets.

These will be analysed at a later date if a longer term study into the impact of the incident is needed.

Copyright Press Association 2007.