On day seven of our Gulf Oil Spill response, Jay Holcomb, IBRRC’s executive director checks in with an update:
On May 6th we did not receive any new oiled birds. We sent out four teams of search and collection people who searched the outer island reaches of the Mississippi delta area. The region is known as the Pass-A-Loutre Wildlife Management Refuge. The teams saw hundreds of clean brown pelicans, terns, cormorants, gulls and shorebirds and only one pelican with a spot of oil on its belly and one tern with a spot of oil on it.
Today there are 5 capture teams made up of IBRRC/Tri-State people, plus government wildlife officials. We are pushing to look more to the east where the oil is coming to shore but we are under the direction of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and they call the shots. I will keep everyone informed as we receive other information and birds.
As many of you know, I have been put in charge of media here in Fort Jackson. I am fine with that but its a full time job. We have had press from all over the world and they have been great.
Yesterday we also filmed with Animal Planet’s Jeff Corwin who is doing some reporting on the Gulf Oil Spill
With that I will sign off. More tomorrow.
– Jay Holcomb, IBRRC
IBRRC now has 16 response team members on the ground including veterinarians, wildlife rehabilitation managers and facilities and capture specialists.
There are now four Oiled Bird Rescue Centers in Fort Jackson, Louisiana, Theodore, Alabama, Gulfport, Mississippi and Pensacola, Florida.
Accredited media and press are welcome to visit the Fort Jackson rescue center daily from 1 PM to 2 PM: MSRC, 100 Herbert Harvey Drive, Buras, Louisiana.
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