Duck cared for by Fairfield rescue survived for 24 years after Alaskan oil spill

The king eider duck was the oldest known bird of its species living in the wild. It was among about 200 birds caught up in an Alaskan oil spill in 1996.

A king eider duck that recently died has been identified as a survivor of an Alaskan oil spill that occurred 24 years ago.

The duck, identified by a leg band, was caught in the M/V Citrus Oil Spill that began in mid-February 1996 in Alaska’s Pribilof Islands around Saint Paul Island in the Bering Sea, about 300 miles from the mainland and some 750 miles from Anchorage.

Almost 200 birds, mostly king eider ducks, were rescued near Saint Paul and transported by a U.S. Coast Guard C-130 airplane to International Bird Rescue’s Anchorage emergency response center. Hundreds more died before being rescued.

The birds were stabilized, cleaned and rehabilitated, then given a 4-hour flight back to Saint Paul Island, where they were released during an event celebrated by the community and its schoolchildren.

International Bird Rescue is based in Fairfield and has a second facility in Southern California. The non-profit group rescues and rehabilitates water birds, and travels around the world to assist in oil spill emergencies.

The long-lived duck provides new evidence that the care given by the rescue group and volunteers can give injured birds a new lease on life. This particular king eider died near English Bay on Saint Paul Island. The metal band number was reported to the U.S. Geological Survey Bird Banding Lab and officials there shared the information with Bird Rescue.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Bird Banding Lab, which administers the scientific banding of wild birds in the United States, said the previously oldest known king eider was a female that was at least 22 years, 1 month old, in Canada — and had not been involved in any oil spills.

Bird Rescue has long said that oiled birds can survive and live normal lives when rehabilitated after oiling, given appropriate resources and skilled staff. This is especially true when wildlife experts follow the protocols that have been refined over Bird Rescue’s nearly 50-year history.

“Bird Rescue has developed and remains at the forefront of the State of the Science for oiled wildlife treatment and rehabilitation,” said Catherine Berg, NOAA Scientific Support Coordinator for Alaska, who was one of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Alaska oil spill response coordinators at the time of the spill.

“Seeing this kind of evidence of rehabilitated bird survival is truly a tribute to their dedication to the advancement of the science and to improving the care of injured birds,” she said.

The commitment by Bird Rescue and Alaska to the concept of a centralized response center to care for affected wildlife, rather than attempting the care and cleaning of animals in a remote, inaccessible location, also has shown how birds benefit. All the birds from this spill were transported from the remote island for care in a Bird Rescue centralized facility in Anchorage.

This is the fourth king eider from the 1996 spill reported through the Bird Banding Lab in recent years.