IFAW President, Fred O’Regan, and IFAW Board member, Brian Hutchinson, visited the IFAW team in Pontevedra, Spain, to experience first-hand the oil spill operation being run by our dedicated professionals
Thursday, 12 December 2002
Authors: Jay Holcomb, Barbara Callahan and Sarah Scarth Yesterday afternoon, IFAW President, Fred O’Regan, and IFAW Board member, Brian Hutchinson, visited the IFAW team in Pontevedra, Spain, to experience first-hand the operation being run by our dedicated professionals.
They were picked up by Becky Brimley, deputy director of IFAW's AIC&D department, who is also in Pontevedra working with the team this week. Fred and Brian toured the facility and met with the team before the arrival of the Environment Minister for the Galicia region, Carlos del Álamo.
There was also a large media contingent present for the visit. Fred spoke about the need for stronger measures to prevent catastrophic spills like the Prestige – the impacts of which are likely to be felt for years to come. After the press conference, Fred and Brian continued to hold discussions with the Environment Minister about the disaster.
Fred had dinner with the team and expressed his gratitude and appreciation for their hard work and dedication. I think it’s fair to say that both were enormously impressed with the operation and were overwhelmed with how the team had managed to turn a small fire-fighters lodge into a working rehabilitation station, caring for more than 350 birds.
Today, Fred and Brian worked with the team and got to see first-hand what is involved in rehabilitating oiled birds. Although their visit was brief it was a huge success, enormously appreciated by the team. On the bird care side, the frustrations continue.
Releases are planned for later in the week; the sooner the better because, even though there are 18 large pools set up now, there are so many birds which have gone through the wash process and now need to be kept in the pools, that they are getting over-crowded. This is problematic because too many birds in a pool can quickly cause waterproofing problems.
If this happens, birds which were ready for release get re-oiled and need to be re-washed. The center received 43 more birds – 24 from the local beaches and the rest from the center in Oleiors and the vet school in Lugo.
