On a foggy morning on January 18, 1971, two Standard Oil tankers collided just outside of San Francisco Bay near the Golden Gate Bridge. In the hours that followed, more than 800,000 gallons of crude oil spread across the water and onto surrounding shorelines, coating beaches and wildlife in thick, caustic oil.
There was no established system for oiled bird rehabilitation. No shared protocols. No coordinated response. People were simply moved to take action. That instinct to act became the foundation of International Bird Rescue.
Birds were among the first and most visible victims. Coastal species such as grebes, scoters, and cormorants were soaked in oil, struggling to survive. By the time the spill response was underway, at least 7,000 birds had been affected (though estimates go as high as 15,000). Nearly 4,300 oiled birds were collected by a eclectic network of volunteers and brought to makeshift wildlife care centers around the Bay Area.
Learning From a Disaster
Registered Nurse Alice Berkner was among those who answered the call. At the hastily established Richmond Bird Care Center, she joined veterinarians, volunteers, and community members doing everything they could to save birds.
“As long as I live, I will never forget the odor that assaulted me as I walked through the doors,” Alice later recalled. “It was a horrendous mix of rotting fish, bird droppings, and oil.”
Across the Bay Area, schoolchildren cleaned beaches alongside oil workers and volunteers from all walks of life. Straw was spread to soak up oil. Birds were washed and treated using improvised methods. Despite extraordinary effort, very few birds were successfully rehabilitated and released.
At the time, that outcome felt devastating but it was also clarifying.
“There were dying birds everywhere and no one knew what to do,” longtime Bird Rescue director Jay Holcomb later said.
Building Solutions Where None Existed
In April, just months after the spill, the International Bird Rescue Research Center (now International Bird Rescue) was formally incorporated as a federal non-profit. The goal was to ensure that wildlife would never again face an oil disaster without trained care, research-based treatment, and coordinated response.That spark of action reshaped wildlife rehabilitation.
Over the decades that followed, Bird Rescue continued scientific research to pioneer best practices in oiled bird care, studied seabird anatomy and physiology, and shared protocols globally so future responders would not have to start from scratch. What began as a crisis response became a model for preparedness and aquatic care.
Since 1971, Bird Rescue has responded to more than 265 oil spills and other large-scale emergencies, caring for more than 250,000 birds, while setting international standards for wildlife emergency response. In the 1990s, Bird Rescue became a founding partner of the Oiled Wildlife Care Network, strengthening coordinated spill response globally. Today, the organization operates two full-time wildlife hospitals in California and an as-needed response facility in Alaska, while sharing expertise and responding to spills.
Today, the Crisis Has Changed
Thanks to human efforts, oil spills occur less frequently than they did 55 years ago. While they do still happen, birds now face a growing array of threats from habitat loss to starvation, environmental toxins, harmful algal blooms, disease outbreaks, and other climate-driven disruptions to the natural world.
Since the 1970s, nearly 3 billion birds have been lost. Today, the crises look different, but our approach is the same: Bird Rescue is an organization of people who take action when wildlife is in crisis.
The organization continues to evolve in response, expanding beyond spill response to meet the realities of a changing world. From pelican starvation events to large-scale habitat-driven emergencies, today’s work demands innovation, collaboration, and rapid adaptation.
Rescue Scales When Knowledge Is Shared
From the beginning, Bird Rescue understood that no single organization could respond to every crisis alone. Alice paved new roads and alliances by reaching across the isle to partner with responsible parties for the good of the birds. By investing in training, protocols, and partnerships across six continents, Bird Rescue has helped build global capacity to respond to recurring emergencies.
Bird Rescue’s current CEO, JD Bergeron, is building on that legacy by creating multilateral partnerships to scale response to match growing needs. Conservation succeeds when we learn from one another, train the next generation, and act together when wildlife is in crisis.
55 Years Later: Looking Ahead
As we begin our 55th anniversary year, we look back to January 1971 not as a distant origin story, but as a living through line. We were born in a crisis in which no one knew how to react. We learned by doing, and we shared what we learned. We built systems where none existed. And we continue to take action when wildlife is in crisis. International Bird Rescue stands today as a global conservation organization.
We invite you to join us as we mark 55 years of responding, learning, and acting for birds in a changing world.