Chronic oil pollution in Europe - International Fund for Animal Welfare

Chronic oil pollution in Europe 

Kees (C.J.) Camphuysen, 

Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research 

A status report

Acknowledgments 

Francis Wiese (Canada) and David Fleet (Germany) 

kindly commented on a draft version of this report. 

Their comments have led to numerous improvements. 

Any errors and shortcomings remaining are the 

responsibility of the author. 

IFAW is grateful to Bruce Russell (US) for his valuable 

contribution to Chapter 10 of this report.

Table of contents 

List of abbreviations and acronyms 5 

1. Foreword 6 

2. Summary 7 

3. Recommendations 11 

4. Introduction 14 

5. Chronic oil pollution as an issue 17 

a. Oil pollution 

b. Seabirds and oil 

6. Measuring the impact of chronic oil pollution 25 

(short introduction on beached-bird surveys and other 

monitoring methods) 

a. Introduction 

b. Beached-bird surveys 

c. Aerial surveillance 

d. Detecting oil spills from space 

e. Standardising the data 

7. Chronic oil pollution in Europe (scale, impact, trends) 33 


b. Oil spill database 

c. Current situation 

8. Sensitive species, sensitive areas 42 


b. Methods for assessing seabird vulnerability to oil pollution 

c. Methods for assessing area vulnerability to oil pollution 

9. The effects of chronic oil pollution on seabird populations 48 

a. Facts and fairy tales 

b. Counts and drift experiments as tools 

c. Offshore censuses: pre- and post-spill results 

d. Colony studies 

e. Assessing the breeding origin of casualties 

f. Discussion 

Chronic Oil Pollution in Europe 

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Table of contents 

10. Law and Programs to reduce levels of oil pollution, and 

minimising the effects of spills 53 


b. International legal framework to reduce (chronic) oil pollution 

c. The EU context 

d. Limitations of existing regulatory instruments and regimes 

11. Conclusions 60 

12. References 63 

Appendix I. Oil vulnerability index scores for species common to 

the northeast Pacific and the North Sea 

74 

Appendix II. Breeding and wintering distribution of European 

seabirds; their status as passage migrants in Arctic 

waters, in the temperate zone of NW Europe, within 

the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and Macaronesia; 

and their OVI scores 

75 

Appendix III. Assessment of anticipated sensitivity of European 

sea areas to chronic oil pollution 

78 

Appendix IV. Chronic oil pollution versus other threats to marine 

wildlife 

82

List of abbreviations and acronyms 

AIS Automatic Identification System 

ALOS Japanese Advanced Land Observing 

Satellite 

APMs Associate Protected Measures 

ATBAs Areas to be Avoided (under SOLAS) 

AVS Area Vulnerability Scores 

BOI Bird Oil Index 

CBD Convention on Biological Diversity 

CDEMs Construction Design, Equipment and 

Manning standards for ships 

dwt Dead weight tons 

EC European Commission 

EcoQO Ecological Quality Objectives 

EEZ Exclusive Economic Zone 

EGEMP European Group of Experts on Satellite 

Monitoring of Sea-based Oil Pollution 

EMSA European Maritime Safety Agency 

EU European Union 

grt Gross register tonnage 

GT Gross Tonnage 

HFOs Heavy Fuel Oils, 

ICES International Council for Exploration 

of the Sea 

ICES/WGSE ICES Working Group for Seabird Ecology 

IMO International Maritime Organization 

JRCEC Joint Research Centre 

LOT Load on Top system 

MARPOL International Convention for the Prevention 

of Pollution from Ships (1973), as modified 

by the Protocol of 1978 (MARPOL 73/78) 

MEPC/IMO Marine Environment Protection Committee 

of the IMO 

MIDIV Monitoring Illicit Discharges from Vessels 

MySQL User-friendly database of oil spill data, 

created by the JRC 

NAO North Atlantic Oscillation index 

NSMC North Sea Ministerial Conference 

OCEANIDES EC research project aiming to identify 

and assemble the knowledge required to 

establish a more harmonized and 

effective monitoring of European waters 

in terms of illegal marine oil pollution. 

Oha Organochlorines 

OILPOL International Convention for the Prevention 

of Pollution of the Sea by Oil (1954) 

OSBMB Ocean Studies Board & Marine Board 

OSPAR Convention for the Protection of the 

Marine Environment of the Northeast 

Atlantic 

OVIOil Vulnerability Indices 

PRFs Port Reception Facilities 

PSSA Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas 

SAR Synthetic Aperture Radar 

SEO Sociedad Española de Ornitología 

(Spanish partner of BirdLife International) 

SERAC Seabird Ecological Reserves Advisory 

Committee 

SOLAS Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea 

SPEA Sociedade Portuguesa para o Estudo 

das Aves (Portuguese partner of BirdLife 

International) 

TEQ Toxic Equivalents 

UNCLOS United Nations Convention on the Law of 

the Sea 


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1. 


Foreword 

Hundreds of thousands of seabirds in Europe are falling victim to a silent killer 

known as chronic oiling. Chronic oiling is the continuous stream of oil into the 

sea from oil spills and deliberate, illegal discharges of oily waste from vessels. 

Oil can affect almost any form of life it comes in contact with and can be 

detected in the environment even 30 years after discharge. 

Whilst shipping accidents resulting in large spills receive the most attention, 

chronic oiling is a constant threat to seabirds, arguably leading to far greater 

numbers of casualties over time. Every year chronic oiling amounts to 8 Exxon 

Valdez size spills in the EU alone. A small amount of illegally dumped oil in a 

crucial seabird habitat can be far more deadly than a large oil spill elsewhere. 

Seabirds, especially those that spend most of their time afloat, are particularly 

vulnerable to oil because even the smallest amount destroys the insulating and 

waterproofing abilities of their feathers. 

IFAW is proud to release this comprehensive report investigating the true 

scale of chronic oiling in EU waters and its impact on bird populations. 

European waters are blighted by oil. More effective legislation, better 

implementation and enforcement as well as further scientific research are 

needed to save Europe’s marine environment and wildlife from chronic oiling. 

As well as trying reducing the discharge of oil, IFAW, working in partnership 

with the International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBRRC), is the world's 

leading international oiled wildlife rescue and rehabilitation organization. 

Since 1989 when IFAW supported groups responding to the massive Exxon 

Valdez oil spill in Alaska, IFAW’s oiled wildlife rescue team works alongside 

local groups, rehabilitators and veterinarians aiming to provide the best 

achievable care for oiled wildlife globally and to develop practical and 

achievable prevention strategies. 

Chronic oiling is not a problem confined to EU waters. Penguins are oiled due 

to illegal bilge dumping along the coasts of Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. 

IFAW has assisted rehabilitation groups in South America with the rescue and 

rehabilitation of over a thousand birds and developed the IFAW Penguin 

Network. 

It’s hard to imagine the suffering and damage caused by oil pollution and 

even harder to accept that much of this is caused by negligence or bad 

practice. We hope that the EU can be an example in enforcing existing and 

new legislation which can help save hundreds of thousands of sea birds and 

other marine animals. 

Fred O’Regan 

Executive Director, IFAW

2. 

Summary 

This report reviews recent trends in oil pollution, with emphasis on ‘chronic oil 

pollution’ in European waters. Chronic oil pollution is the result of the 

continuous stream of smaller and larger oil spills and deliberate / illegal 

“operational” discharges of oily waste from vessels. This pollution is chronic 

vs. episodic in that recurring oil discharges in a sensitive area prevent the 

impacted resources from recovering. It is a diffuse type of contamination from 

various sources that enters the environment in gaseous, liquid or solid forms. 

The most lethal form enters the marine environment through deliberate (illegal) 

discharges at sea. The most visible effect of marine oil pollution is the 

associated mortality of marine wildlife, notably seabirds. 

This report describes the scale and identifies the sources of the oil pollution 

problem. It discusses the methods of assessing the impact on marine wildlife 

and outlines the species-specific and area-specific differences in sensitivity to 

oiling. Chronic oiling is a constant threat to seabirds. Legal measures to reduce 

the oil problem are reviewed and considered in the context of recent trends 

indicating a decline in the proportion of stranded seabirds showing traces of oil 

contamination. 

Rather than simply signalling the issue of chronic oil pollution, the concluding 

comments of the report propose possible solutions and review ideas to further 

reduce the problem. 

Chronic oil pollution as an issue 

• Worldwide annual releases of oil have declined since the early 1970s from approx. 6 

million tons to about one million tons, but a general lack of information prevents a 

thorough evaluation of true current levels of oil pollution at sea. 

• Illegal and incidental operational discharges from shipping and offshore installations 

(chronic oil pollution) are the most important sources of marine wildlife casualties 

because they occur all the time and because of the important overlap between large 

seabird concentrations and busy shipping lanes. 

• It is a misconception that large spills cause greater environmental damage than small 

spills: what matters are when and where the release happens and the type of oil that is 

spilled. 

• Seabirds are particularly vulnerable to oil because this substance damages the insulating 

properties of their plumage, which they require to survive in a maritime environment. 

• Seabirds that spend most of their time afloat and that have little contact with the coast are 

the most vulnerable to oil pollution. 

• Small amounts of oil in the plumage cause a bird to give up feeding and most casualties 

are due to starvation. 

• Large amounts of oil on the plumage cause instant immobility and possibly immediate 

death through suffocation and drowning. 


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2. Summary 


Measuring the scale and impact of chronic oil pollution 

• Beached-bird surveys have been routinely conducted in many European countries over 

the past decades, enabling a proper historical evaluation of temporal trends in marine oil 

pollution. 

• Oil rates in seabirds found dead on beaches are highest in areas bordering shipping lanes. 

• Significant declines in oil rates have been found over the past 30 years. 

• Aerial surveys are an instrument to measure oil pollution more directly and the results 

confirm that most oil slicks are formed in the vicinity of the major shipping lanes. 

These surveys have generally confirmed the declining trend of oil slick occurrence, but 

long-term comparable data are not readily available for analysis. 

• Recent technology offers the possibility to detect oil slicks from space. This technology is 

particularly promising for the future, but long-term trends cannot be deduced from these 

data at the moment. 

• Despite good intentions and collaboration from different countries, an international 

overview of oil pollution is impeded by difficulties in harmonising the available data. 

Recent initiatives by the EC Joint Research Centre to develop standard nomenclature and 

an on-line database are described. 

• OSPAR introduced a series of Ecological Quality Objectives to monitor characteristic 

parameters in the marine environment. EcoQOs are intended to act as monitoring 

guidelines until a set target has been reached. 

• The oiled-guillemot EcoQO, soon to be implemented, is intended as an instrument for 

monitoring chronic oil pollution in 15 European sub-regions. The objective of this particular 

EcoQO is defined as follows: “The average proportion of oiled common guillemots should 

be 10% or less of the total found dead or dying in each of 15 areas of the North Sea over a 

period of at least 5 years. Sampling should occur in all winter months (November to April) 

of each year.” We would expect that this will motivate the development and 

implementation of similar monitoring tools (and policy targets) in other parts of Europe. 

Chronic oil pollution in Europe 

• The sources of chronic oil pollution are diverse and estimates of total quantities vary 

widely. 

• Two aspects deserve attention: oil pollution has declined over the past decades, but illegal 

discharges by vessels are still a major source of the chronic oil pollution currently 

observed. 

• The EC JRC oil spill database, presented on the web at http://serac.jrc.it/midiv/, is 

consulted to evaluate recent developments in chronic oil pollution. Composite maps of the 

Special Areas within Europe (the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the Baltic and the North 

Sea) show the locations of nearly 20,000 oil slicks detected over a period of six years (only 

three years in some areas). 

• The recent data from high tech remote sensing equipment provide a very clear signal that 

European waters are by no means free of oil spills. 

Sensitive species, sensitive areas 

• Oil Vulnerability Indices (OVI) are widely used to rank species in terms of vulnerability to 

oil. Important parameters are behaviour, exposure, biogeographical population, 

reproductive potential, and reliance on the marine environment. OVIs should preferably be 

calculated at the subspecies level. 

• OVIs have not been calculated for numerous European taxa of seabirds.

• Recent work assessing the sensitivity of different sea areas to oil pollution has been 

evaluated. Key information needed consists of the OVIs of the species living in the area, 

and adequate (offshore) census data to evaluate spatial and temporal patterns of 

abundance at sea. 

• Possible changes in the (wintering) distribution of seabirds should be taken into 

consideration with regard to the vulnerability of certain areas, and a deeper 

understanding of offshore habitat requirements is therefore needed. 

• The Greenland Sea, Icelandic waters, Bay of Biscay, Portuguese and Spanish Atlantic 

coasts, Macaronesia, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea are data-deficient in terms of 

knowledge regarding their sensitivity to oil pollution. 

• Knowledge pertaining to the sensitivity of the Barents Sea, Norwegian Sea, Channel and 

Celtic Sea is partly data-deficient. 

• The North Sea, Irish Sea, waters west of Britain, Faeroese waters and the Baltic Sea are 

well studied and their sensitivity to oil pollution has been evaluated. 

The effects of chronic oil pollution on seabird populations 

• The effects of oil spills on seabirds have often been exaggerated in the past. 

• Adequate surveys, coupled with drift experiments and accurate information on the age 

structure of oil spill casualties and their possible (breeding) origin are required to enable a 

proper evaluation of the scale and impact of accidental or chronic oil pollution on 

seabirds. 

• Oil pollution is a major threat to seabirds mainly in their European wintering areas. 

• Direct effects on seabird populations, such as on survival rates and age structure, are 

rarely detected because specific long-term studies involving individually marked birds 

need to be in place in the area affected by the spill before it actually happens. 

• A recent review of major oil spills revealed that adequate data usually have been 

collected but those post-spill evaluations making use of that data tend to be rare. 

• Recent studies showed that winter mortality of adult guillemots was doubled by major oil 

pollution incidents, demonstrating that oil pollution can have wide-scale impacts on 

marine ecosystems, and that these impacts can be quantified using populations of marked 

individual seabirds. 

Law and programs to reduce levels of oil pollution, and 

minimising the effects of spills 

• The UN Convention for the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has recognised pollution from 

vessels as one of the main threats to the marine environment. In response, UNCLOS has 

established the framework for the multi-lateral development of rules and standards acting 

mainly through the competent international organization, namely the International 

Maritime Organization (IMO). The IMO has adopted several instruments to control the 

environmental impact of shipping, the most important being the International Convention 

for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL 73/78). 

• Within Europe, “Special Areas” have been identified under MARPOL (Annex I) as waters 

where oil discharges are essentially illegal. Special Area status within Europe was 

applied to the Mediterranean, Black, and Baltic seas in 1978. The marine region 

corresponding to North West European waters (mainly the North Sea) was designated 

as a Special Area in 1999. 

• The designation of Special Areas under MARPOL is a significant step, but without 

enforcement, such legislation is pointless. 

2. Summary 


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2. Summary 


• Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas (PSSAs) offer an enhanced tool for protecting sensitive 

areas and species from the impact of international shipping in that they allow the adoption 

of a large range of instruments, so-called Associated Protective Measures (APMs), which 

are not only limited to the control of oil discharges. 

• Oil discharge standards are not the only or most effective means of protecting sensitive 

sea areas. For example, the SOLAS V/10 mandatory ship routing measures may be used to 

restrict or prohibit the passage of certain types of ships through sensitive sea areas. 

• The EU has introduced several packages of legislative measures and proposals, including 

the recent Erika III package, aiming to improve maritime safety, reduce chronic oil 

pollution and prevent accidental pollution by ships. These legal instruments largely 

address the issues highlighted above. 

• Several recent studies based on evidence from offshore surveillance by “coastal” states 

and from inspections by Port States show that one of the basic problems lies with a 

relatively small percentage of vessels and owners that persist in consistently operating 

their vessels in full contravention to the IMO's body of environmental regulations. In 

relative terms, the numbers are small – approximately 10-15% of the world fleet. However, 

in absolute terms, this subset of owners accounts for a large number of vessels. 

• Oily waste discharge standards have been circumvented by companies and ships’ crew. 

There is evidence that the standards themselves foster these circumventions as the 

pollution prevention equipment is often poorly maintained of insufficient capacity and does 

not operate as designed. 

• In March 2006, the Marine Environmental Protection Committee (MEPC) of the IMO has 

invited member governments to provide concrete proposals, including draft MEPC 

circulars or proposed amendments to existing instruments, to address the operational 

problems most vessels are facing and what may the root causes of non-compliance. 

Conclusions 

• Although a general decline has been observed in marine oil pollution, there is also a 

shortage of long-term studies and of readily available and comparable information, which 

limits our understanding of the true impacts of oil pollution on marine wildlife and on 

seabird populations in particular. 

• Available knowledge seems to play very little part in orienting the decision in the planning 

of clean-up operations in the aftermath of oil incidents or in planning aerial surveillances 

of oil at sea. 

• The recently established EC website and JRC database clearly show that many instances 

of oil pollution are in fact avoidable, but even in Special Areas control measures have 

been inadequate to reduce and eliminate illegal spills. If illegal discharges are still as 

frequent as shown, states need to adopt far stricter systems of Port States and Flag State 

control, as well as effective monitoring and sanctioning procedures. 

• Increased enforcement, however, is only a partial and for many countries a costly solution. 

• Apart from the shortcomings in existing legislation and enforcement for preventing oil 

spills and illegal discharge of oil in sensitive sea areas such as MARPOL Special Areas 

and PSSAs, there is also a technical limitation in that the ecological criteria used to 

designate such areas fail to specifically address seabird sensitivity to oil as indicated by 

current data on seabird distribution and seasonal movement patterns.

3. 

Recommendations 

3.1 National 

IFAW recommends that competent national authorities 

and enforcement agencies take the following steps: 

Improving Information 

• Identify knowledge and address gaps in sensitive / vulnerable areas; 

• Fully examine the sensitivity of seabird species to oiling (Oil Vulnerability Indices - OVI) in 

Europe and develop a full set of data in order to analyse area sensitivity; 

• Collect seabird distribution data or compiled existing data, to start systematically evaluating 

the sensitivity of European seas to oil pollution. Scientists should be encouraged and 

supported to conduct offshore surveys in data-deficient areas and/or areas that have never 

been properly analysed, such as Greenland Sea, Icelandic waters, Bay of Biscay, Portuguese 

and Spanish Atlantic coasts, Macaronesia, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea; 

• Support long-term population studies of seabirds (seabird demography) as essential 

tools to evaluate the effects of oil spills and chronic oiling and develop work in datadeficient 

areas; 

• Stimulate seabird ringing programmes in little-studied seabird breeding areas, and maintain 

programmes in areas where scientific research is currently in place; 

• Immediately implement the oiled-guillemot Ecological Quality Objectives (EcoQO) 

introduced by OSPAR and to develop and implement similar monitoring tools (and policy 

targets) in other parts of Europe; 

• Stimulate and support beached-bird surveys in all coastal areas bordering sensitive seabird 

populations (wintering and/or breeding) and annually report the results to evaluate trends in 

oil rates; and 

• Implement a programme for analysing the types of oil responsible for ecological damage, 

preferably in connection with beached-bird survey schemes. Following the outcome of such 

projects, measures targeting particular types/sources of oil pollution should be prioritised. 

Stronger Emphasis on the Most Sensitive/Vulnerable Areas 

• Identify, monitor and protect sea areas that are particularly important for seabirds; 

• Use the collected data to rank different sea areas according to their sensitivity to oil 

pollution, taking into account the abundance, sensitivity and diversity of wildlife; 

• Make sure that sensitive bird areas, rather than areas designated using more arbitrary 

ecological criteria (e.g., MARPOL Special Areas) are granted the strictest protection and 

greatest attention with regard to the threat from chronic oil pollution; 

• Systematically evaluate resident as well as migrant seabird populations in European seas 

with regard to their sensitivity to oil pollution. This information, along with seabird 

distribution data that already exists, needs to be incorporated into the selection criteria 

used to designate sensitive areas at sea, e.g., Special Areas or PSSAs, so that these may be 

monitored and protected on the basis of more pertinent ecological data; and 

• When appropriate, make use of the SOLAS V/10 mandatory ship routing measures to restrict 

or prohibit the passage of certain types of ships through sensitive sea areas. 


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3. Recommendations 


Implementation and Enforcement 

• Ensure stricter implementation and enforcement of existing measures and legislation to 

further limit the effects of chronic oil pollution, and to eliminate oiling in Special Areas. 

Specifically: 

• Making sure that ships flying their flags comply with international anti-pollution 

standards and maritime waters under their jurisdiction are managed in accordance with 

the international conventions they are parties to; 

• Enhancing inspections in ports; 

• Imposing penalties of adequate severity on offenders guilty of on-compliance with 

international standards of oil pollution, such that it becomes more cost-effective for 

shippers to comply with existing regulations, than to disregard them; 

• Developing economic incentives to encourage compliance by ships with international 

standards (e.g., accelerated port inspections for well performing ships, smaller port 

access fees, discount on the purchase of fuel upon delivery of waste waters to reception 

facilities) thereby preventing illegal disposal from being an attractive alternative; 

• Encouraging onboard oily waste disposal (incineration and recycling); 

• Facilitating the use of port reception facilities; 

• Monitoring handling and disposal of oily wastes in ships using transponders; and 

• Following an analysis of abundance, sensitivity and diversity of wildlife, consider applying 

for the designation of PSSAs in waters under (and beyond) national jurisdiction and the 

adoption of associated protective measures, including mandatory routeing measures (e.g., 

ATBAs), to reduce the impact of shipping activities on marine biodiversity in the area. 

Prevention 

• Promote the adoption of new international standards or the amendment of existing ones 

to reduce chronic oil pollution (e.g., introduction of an Electronic Oil Discharge Monitoring 

System (EODMS) as a compulsory requirement under MARPOL 73/78 Annex I); 

• Reinforce policy and legislation for the provision of places of refuge for ships in distress 

while minimizing the risk for seabirds and other marine wildlife; 

Response 

• Conduct proper impact assessments for each oil spill; and 

• Use available data and develop (seasonal) environmental sensitivity maps to improve the 

planning of clean-up operations in the wake of oil incidents (e.g., in orienting the decision 

to immediately contain illegal spills at sea or leave them to disperse naturally, or in 

planning aerial surveillances for oil at sea) and ensure prompt and effective response; 

Education 

• Introduce mandatory educational programmes for seafarers to enhance knowledge and 

awareness of marine environmental issues and of the damage caused by oil spills on marine 

wildlife. That may be done; for example, by introducing compulsory environmental courses; 

lectures and practical activities in National Academies (e.g., the obligatory course for Dutch 

cadets of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research-now Texel Academy). 

3.2 European Union 

IFAW recommends that the EU Institutions take the 

following steps: 

• The European Commission shall finance long-term studies to fill the current lack of 

information regarding sensitive seabirds areas, seabirds distribution and OVIs as well as 

mapping projects;

• Following the proposals from the European Commission, the European Parliament and the 

Council shall adopt the Erika III package without any further delay; 

• Ensure that the Erika III proposal concerning the regime on places of refuge for ships in 

distress (i.e., the proposed amendments to the VTMIS Directive) contains clear provisions 

for the protection sensitive areas for seabirds; in particular: 

• Member States should conduct a preliminary assessment of the ecological 

sensitivity/vulnerability of the areas before drafting plans for the accommodation of 

ships in distress and the inventory of potential places of refuge; 

• Ecologically sensitive areas for seabirds and other marine wildlife (based on temporal 

and spatial boundaries) should be mapped to identify: 1) areas not suitable for refuge 

designation: 2) high priority areas for emergency response through contingency 

planning; 3) priority areas for pollution prevention measures (e.g., routing, ATBAs) 4) 

priority areas for increased enforcement efforts including targeted surveillance; 

• The Independent National Authority shall take wildlife considerations (e.g., proximity of 

sensitive/vulnerable areas, breeding/nursing areas or migratory routs) in to account 

when deciding whether or not to accept a ship in distress into a place of refuge; 

• In the exercise of its institutional function as “the guardian of the Treaty” the Commission 

(assisted by EMSA) shall monitor very closely the Member States’ implementation of 

existing EU legislation concerning oil pollution and make full use of all EU financial and 

enforcement mechanisms, including infringement actions before the European Court of 

Justice (ECJ), to ensure full compliance with existing measures; 

• In case of Member States non-compliance with existing EU legislation, the ECJ shall 

impose financial penalties of sufficient severity to discourage further violation; 

• The Member States, in coordination of the European Commission, shall promote the 

adoption of the highest protection standards within the framework of the IMO. In order to 

increase the effectiveness of the EU’s external action the existing EU coordination 

mechanisms should be strengthened and further formalized. 

3.3 International 

IFAW recommends that the International Maritime 

Organization (IMO), in particular the Marine 

Environmental Protection Committee (MEPC), takes the 

following steps: 

• Conduct or promote a comprehensive review of the adequacy of onboard oil pollution 

prevention equipment (oily water separators, storage and holding tanks, piping monitors), 

oily waste record keeping, and operating procedures and to amend IMO guidelines and 

requirements as necessary; 

• On the basis of a study of known (prosecuted and investigated) cases of illegal oil 

discharges, the MEPC should draft and distribute a “Circular” to member states and 

shipping companies concerning the extent of the problem, root causes and the impact of 

non-compliance on wildlife (population decimation), mariners (jail and fines) and 

shipping companies (big fines). The purpose of this Circular like other circulars is to ask 

member states to provide this information and for companies and Port States to take 

“appropriate actions”; 

• Consider amending MARPOL Annex I to require an Electronic Oil Discharge Monitoring 

System (EODMS) to replace/supplement parts of the oil record book. The EODMS should 

be designed to discourage tampering of the Oil Water Separators (OWS) systems and 

piping and “midnight” dumping and to “encourage” companies and crew to develop, 

procure, install and operate best available technology to comply with the discharge 

requirements of MARPOL Annex I; 

• and Incorporate data on seabirds distribution and OVIs in the selection criteria used to 

designate sensitive sea areas, such as MARPOL Special Areas and PSSAs. 

3. Recommendations 


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4. 


Introduction 

Marine oil pollution has attracted attention since the late 19th century, when 

sea-going vessels powered by engines gradually replaced the fleets of sailing 

vessels (Gray 1871, Mothersole 1910). Unwanted or excess oils were simply 

dumped into the seas and oceans. During the First World War, activities at sea 

greatly increased the levels of marine oil pollution and the effects became 

clear to everyone living near the coast (Verwey 1915, Woltman 1920, Anon. 

1922). Naturalists were alerted by oiled seabirds washed ashore, seaside 

recreation was affected as beaches became increasingly polluted with tar, and 

fishermen reported oiled catches that could not be taken to market. In these 

early years, so much oil was discharged into the oceans (sometimes as much 

as 10% of the oil used by shipping) that even ship-owners considered it a 

waste (Wild 1925, Anon. 1926, Cole 1929, Drijver 1929). The concern of shipping 

companies did not encompass the effects on biodiversity or the marine 

environment, but focused simply on the economic cost as something that 

should be minimised. Nevertheless, their early efforts to reduce the discharges 

of hydrocarbons into the sea were arguably the most significant thus far taken. 

Despite these efforts to reduce economic losses, the seas remained far from 

clean. Low value oil residues and oil-water mixtures were still freely dumped, 

and strandings of large numbers of oiled seabirds became annual events. 

The presence of oil on beaches resulting from an endless stream of smaller 

and larger discharges, added to by the inevitable oil incidents that occurred, 

became a permanent nuisance. 

The sources of oil pollution having received most publicity are the dramatic 

spills caused by oil-tanker accidents and platform blowouts. The Torrey 

Canyon was a tanker that many of us still remember, not because of its sheer 

size or memorable journeys, but because of its grounding near Land’s End in 

1967 and the considerable environmental damage inflicted (Bourne et al. 1967; 

Gill et al. 1967). The spectacular nature of major shipping incidents however 

does not make them the most important source of oil pollution at sea 

(Etkin 1999, Etkin et al. 1999, GESAMP 2001). Urban run-off and discharges, 

atmospheric fallout, natural seeps, offshore production and operational 

discharges during transportation at sea are considerably larger sources of 

pollution. This report reviews recent trends in oil pollution in European waters, 

with emphasis on ‘chronic oil pollution’ 1 . 

1 Chronic release of petroleum hydrocarbons from natural and anthropogenic sources into the world’s oceans

An effect of oil pollution that readily springs to mind is that of seabird 

mortality. Seabirds are by far the most visible victims of a spill, although it must 

not be forgotten that they are only one of the groups of organisms affected and 

only a part of the environmental damage inflicted. Why seabirds are so 

vulnerable to oil pollution, and how it is possible that some spills have affected 

such large numbers of seabirds while other events have caused so little 

damage, are questions that are addressed in this overview. It is from lessons 

learned in the past that future damage can best be avoided or at least 

minimised. Through systematic monitoring programmes, many European 

countries retrieve thousands of oiled seabirds every year. Crude estimates of 

annual losses due to chronic oil pollution range into the hundreds of thousands 

of individuals every year (Camphuysen 1989). The first reports of oil pollution 

were not published before the late 19th century, and it was not until the early 

20th century that international conventions were organised to address the 

problem. Now, early in the 21st century, chronic oil pollution is still an issue. 

Two of the most recent ‘mystery spills’ (deliberate discharges of an unknown 

vessel; classic examples of chronic oil pollution) are briefly discussed and 

illustrated in this report (see Boxes 1 & 2 ). 

The first chapter of this report addresses chronic oil pollution as an issue. 

The chapter describes the scale of the problem and as far as available 

information permits, identifies the sources and patterns of pollution. 

The second chapter focuses on ways to measure the impact of chronic oil 

pollution, reviewing which monitoring instruments are available, how they are 

used and by whom, and whether a proper system of impact assessment would 

be useful to further identify and subsequently reduce the problem of chronic oil 

pollution. Chronic oil pollution within Europe is the topic of the third chapter, 

which discusses which areas are particularly sensitive and where work is 

most needed in order to reduce the scale and impact of chronic oil pollution. 

The fourth chapter addresses the impact of oil pollution on seabird populations, 

evaluating the evidence showing adverse effects and discussing the quality of 

research that suggests chronic oiling has little negative impact. Chapter five 

addresses the question of how the constant threat to seabirds from chronic 

oiling should be scaled in comparison with other threats. Finally, chapter six 

explores the measures that have been taken to minimise chronic oiling, 

examines if these steps been successful, and proposes recommendations for 

further action towards reducing the impact of spilled oil. 

Although there has clearly been considerable progress in the past decades 

in terms of reducing the scale and frequency of oil spills, it is also evident from 

the general conclusions of this report that the oil problem is far from resolved 

(Box 1). The end of this document thus presents a discussion of future 

strategies to further reduce or preferably completely eliminate the problem. 

This might seem an over-ambitious task given the long history of oil pollution. 

However, the recent decline in this form of contamination clearly shows that its 

further reduction, if not elimination, is not impossible. 

4. Introduction 


15

16 

4. Introduction 

Right 

25th December 2005 

Recent examples of the effect 

of chronic oil pollution. 

Three Razorbills Alca torda and 

two Common Guillemots, 

collected at Harlingen 

(Wadden Sea, The Netherlands), 

victims of an illegal, deliberate 

spill of heavy bunker oil 

(C.J. Camphuysen). 

Right 

Oiled Razorbill collected at 

Harlingen 

(Wadden Sea, The Netherlands) 

(C.J. Camphuysen) 


Box 1 

Oil pollution as a never-ending story 

The sea around us is by no means as heavily oiled as it was in the first half of the 20th 

century or even as late as in the mid-1980s. Typically, however, the writing of this very 

report was interrupted by yet another ‘anonymous’ spill of oil in the southern North Sea. 

The slick killed numerous seabirds by simply covering them in a large quantity of heavy 

and particularly sticky tar-like oil. Aerial monitoring failed to detect the spill and the 

source of pollution was not identified. Officially, this means that there was no oil 

incident. It is thought that the cause of the disaster was an unseen illegal discharge of 

some passing vessel in stormy weather, just to the north of the Wadden Sea islands. A 

deliberate discharge of heavy fuel oil in a Special Area as listed under MARPOL Annex I 

(c.f. chapter “Reducing levels of oil pollution, and minimising the effects of spills”), rich 

in vulnerable seabirds and bordering one of the world’s most sensitive estuarine areas, 

constitutes a criminal act and is a clear indication that still more work is required to 

eliminate the oil problem.

5. 

Chronic oil pollution as 

an issue 

a. Oil pollution 

There is a chronic release of petroleum hydrocarbons from natural and anthropogenic 

sources into the world’s oceans. Chronic oil pollution is the result of the continuous stream 

of smaller and larger oil spills and deliberate / illegal “operational” discharges of oily waste 

from vessels. This pollution is chronic vs. episodic in that recurring oil discharges in a 

sensitive area prevent the impacted resources from recovering. The most lethal form enters 

the marine environment through deliberate (illegal) discharges at sea. The most visible 

effect of marine oil pollution is the associated mortality of marine wildlife, notably seabirds. 

Hydrocarbons enter the marine environment through natural seepage, during the extraction 

or transportation of oil, through atmospheric deposition and from land-based sources. Crude 

oil that seeps naturally into the marine environment establishes “background levels” of 

contamination that need to be factored in when determining the extent of pollution from 

anthropogenic sources (Tables 1 and 2; OSBMB 2003). Natural seepage is often highlighted 

as evidence that oil in the marine environment is a ‘natural thing’ and therefore not a cause 

for concern. The evolutionary processes enabling organisms to adapt to leaks of petroleum 

hydrocarbons are however both ancient and fragile (Agard et al. 1993). In contrast, the 

human activity of drilling for oil and subsequently transporting petroleum across the world’s 

oceans is recent. This has affected organisms and environments that were never in contact 

with oil before, causing huge damage. It is mainly the transportation and use of oil by ships 

sailing the world’s oceans that causes the most damage to marine wildlife 

(http://www.aip.com.au/amosc/papers/van_enckevort_h.doc; Kim et al. 1986). 

Estimates of total quantities of petroleum hydrocarbons released every year in marine 

environments vary widely, but are thought to have declined from approx. 6 million tons in the 

early 1970s to the present level of some 1.3 million tons (National Research Council 1985, 

1991; GESAMP 1993, Peet 1994, Patin 1999, OSBMB 2003). These estimates are however still 

very uncertain and the true situation is poorly understood, particularly with regard to oil 

discharges from land-based sources (OSBMB 2003). Even the most recent, and arguably 

most comprehensive, estimates of average worldwide annual release of petroleum 

hydrocarbons are essentially incomplete. Due to lack of data, there are no global estimates 

of the discharges originating from smaller registered vessels (

18 

5. Chronic oil pollution 

as an issue 

• discharges of bilge and fuel 

oil plus operational losses 

from tankers 

•• other shipping (ports, 

shipyards, scrapping etc) 


Table 1 

Average global annual releases of oil by source (in thousands of tons). Sources: National Research Council 

(1991), GESAMP (1993), Peet (1994), OSBMB (2003). 

Year of estimated publication 

1973/ 

1975 

1981/ 

1985 

1990/ 

1990 

1992/ 

1993 

1999/ 

2003 min max 

Natural seepage n.d. 250 n.d. 250 600 200 - 2000 

Extraction of petroleum 50 50 38 20 - 62 

Platforms n.d. n.d. 0.9 0 - 1 

Atmospheric deposition n.d. n.d. 1.3 0 - 3 

Produced waters n.d. n.d. 36 19 - 58 

Transportation of petroleum 2130 2680 2222 2222 2222 2222 - 2222 

Pipeline spill n.d. 12 6 - 37 

Tank vessel spills 200 410 110 110 100 93 - 130 

Operational discharges 1080 • 1020 • 410 • 410 • 36 18 - 72 

Coastal facility spills 750 • • 70 • • 40 • • 40 • • 4.9 2 - 15 

Atmospheric deposition n.d. n.d. n.d. 0.4 0 - 1 

Consumption of petroleum 100 1180 10 1490 477 131 - 6041 

Land-based (river and runoff) n.d. 1180 n.d. 1180 140 7 - 5000 

Recreational marine vessel n.d. n.d. n.d. - 

Spills (non-tank vessels) 100 10 10 7.1 7 - 9 

Operational discharges (>100 GT) 270 90 - 810 

Operational discharges (

Table 2 

Average worldwide annual releases of oil by source (in thousands of tons), after Patin (1999). The 1985 estimates 

were calculated from published proportions (relative contributions of oil released into the environment), and are 

based on the assumption that the decline in releases occurring between 1981 and 1990 was constant. 

Land based Urban run-off and discharges 2500 2100 1080 952 1175 

Coastal refineries 200 60 100 

Other coastal effluents 150 50 

Oil transportation and shipping Operational discharges tankers 1080 600 700 1260 564 

Tanker accidents 300 300 400 

Discharges from non-tanker shipping 750 200 320 

Offshore production Offshore production discharges 80 60 50 56 47 

Atmospheric Atmospheric fallout 600 600 300 280 306 

Natural Natural see page 600 600 200 224 259 

Total discharges 6110 4670 3200 2772 2351 

7000 

6000 

5000 

4000 

3000 

2000 

1000 

0 

1973 1979 1981 1985 1990 

Natural seeps 

Atomspheric 

Offshore production 

Oil transportation & shipping 

Land-based 

1973 1979 1981 1985 1990 1999 

depended largely on the incidence of catastrophic spills. While smaller slicks (< 340 tons) were 

far more frequent than large ones (> 3400 tons), their total volume was usually only a fraction 

of that of a single catastrophic slick. Tanker spills have often received more media coverage, 

but the amount of oil involved is often less than that spilled from pipelines, storage tanks, and 

other facilities. It should be realised, however, that in the case of a catastrophic spill, the 

amount of oil released is usually well known, whereas the numerous smaller discharges of 

lesser incidents cannot be quantified in terms of slick size and usually remain undetected. 

Operational discharges from vessels in general and tankers in particular have declined 

substantially over the last 25 years. According to the latest GESAMP Report No. 75 “Estimates 

of Oil Entering the Marine Environment from Sea-based Activities”, the total amount of oil 

entering the sea annually as a result of operational discharges (from engine rooms and fuel 

tanks of all ships) is approximately 189, 000 tonnes/yr (Para.80). Using the results from 

beached bird surveys in the southern North Sea, Camphuysen (1998) found a consistent 

decline in chronic oil pollution, which seemed in perfect agreement with reduced amounts and 

frequencies of petroleum hydrocarbons polluting beaches in the area. However, despite the 

significant reduction of oil discharges from tanker incidents over the last 20 years, this form of 

discharge is still a regular occurrence in many areas around Europe (Clark 2001). 

5. Chronic oil 

pollution as an issue 

Figure 1 

Average, worldwide annual 

releases of oil by source 

(in thousands of tons). 

Sources: Patin (1999), OSBMB 

(2003); Table 1 (right-hand 

column) and Table 2. 


19

20 


as an issue 

Figure 2 

Amount of oil spilled (tons) and 

numbers of oiled seabirds found 

dead (n) as a result of seven 

recent oil spills in Western 

Europe (from ICES 2005). 


b. Does more oil spilled mean that more seabirds are at risk? 

It is a general misconception that important spills involving large quantities of oil cause greater 

damage than smaller spills. The International Council for Exploration of the Sea (ICES 2005) 

reviewed seven major oil incidents that had occurred in Western Europe since the Torrey 

Canyon ran aground in the late 1970s: the Amoco Cadiz off France in 1978, the Stylis in the 

Skagerrak (northern North Sea) in 1980, the Braer off Shetland in 1993, the Sea Empress in the 

Irish Sea/Celtic Sea in 1996, the Erika off France in 1999, the Prestige off north-western Spain 

in 2002, and finally the Tricolor in the English Channel in 2002. In four of these accidents, vast 

amounts of oil were released at once (>70,000 tons), and all spills took place in winter and 

early spring (November to March). Smaller amounts of oil were spilled from the Erika (15,000 

tons) and the Tricolor (170 tons), and the Stylis deliberately discharged some 600 tons of 

carbon black feedstock oil on its crossing from Rotterdam to southern Norway. There was no 

positive correlation between the numbers of seabird casualties counted on shore and the 

amount of oil spilled (Figure 2). Despite the relatively small amount of oil, the Stylis incident 

ranked highest in terms of estimated seabird mortality caused. A similar wildlife disaster 

occurred after the Erika incident, which was relatively modest in terms of the quantity of 

hydrocarbons released. In contrast, rather fewer birds died as a result of the 223,000 tons of 

crude oil spilled by the Amoco Cadiz, an incident which ranks as the fourth largest tanker spill 

in the world (White & Baker 1999), the sixth largest oil spill in the world (Etkin 1999), and by far 

the most dramatic event of its kind in Europe. 

50000 

40000 

30000 

20000 

10000 

0 

Stylis 

Tricolor 

Erika 

Prestige 

Sea Empress 

Braer 

Amoco Cadiz 

0 50,000 

100,000 150,000 200,000 250,000 

One reason for this surprising result is that some spills occurred in areas known to be very 

sensitive to oil pollution because of their importance for wintering seabirds, whereas other 

slicks occurred in less vulnerable regions (Carter et al. 1993). It is not the amount of oil spilled 

that matters most, but rather when and where it happens. An area with large concentrations of 

highly vulnerable species of seabirds and marine mammals is considered to be more sensitive 

to surface pollutants than other areas lacking such concentrations of fauna. Another factor of 

variation between the mentioned incidents was the type of oil spilled. 

The Braer ran aground and lost its entire cargo of 84,700 tons of Norwegian Gulfaks crude oil 

plus a small amount of heavy bunker oil (Heubeck et al. 1995; White & Baker 1999). This spill 

was unusual in that it did not produce a surface slick: the combined effect of the lightweight oil 

and the exceptionally strong wind and wave energy dispersed the slick naturally. 

What does make a difference in terms of wildlife casualties (oiled seabirds and marine 

mammals) is the consistency of the oil. Global statistics are not particularly informative in this 

respect, but generally speaking, at least with respect to external oiling, both river run-off and 

atmospheric depositions of petroleum hydrocarbons do not pose an immediate threat for 

animals such as seabirds and cetaceans. However, seals and otters may be at risk when sites 

used for hauling out (i.e., coming on land) or feeding become contaminated by constant flows 

of even lightly polluted river water. Much of the Amoco Cadiz oil quickly formed a viscous 

emulsion, resulting in up to a four-fold increase in the volume of the pollutant. Seabirds were 

simply smothered by this emulsion, and as a result died from suffocation. Viscous water-in-oil 

emulsions (“mousse”) of this kind are very dangerous to marine wildlife and even relatively 

small amounts of oil can do very serious harm.

c. Offshore platforms versus transportation of oil 

Other sources of chronic oil pollution are the deliberate discharges and non-reported 

(smaller) accidents associated with offshore platforms. Unfortunately, most European 

beached bird surveys neglect to systematically record which oil types are involved. A threeyear 

European project recording oil deposits on beaches and oiled birds in Denmark, 

Germany and The Netherlands however did identify oil types (Dahlmann et al. 1994). This and 

other, more localised, follow-up projects (e.g., Fleet & Reineking 2001) clearly showed that 

North Sea crude oils formed only a small proportion of oil types found. The identification of 

crude oils alone is insufficient to prove that offshore oil installations may be involved, for the 

oil in question is transported from the source towards oil terminals around the world. 

The lack of evidence that oil platforms and associated releases of oil into the marine 

environment are having an effect on seabirds is mainly due to the distance of these 

installations to well surveyed shorelines: there always remains the possibility that most 

wildlife casualties have been lost at sea. Evidence for the frequent releases of oil into the 

North Sea from oil platforms in this region is provided by the results of aerial surveys, based 

on the EC Joint Research Centre data for the North Sea, as summarised in the chapter 

entitled “Chronic oil pollution in Europe”. The presence of the Tampen oil field to the 

northeast of the Shetland Islands, for example, is clearly reflected by the numerous oil slicks 

detected. However, there is no available information on the effects of these slicks. 

d. Seabirds and oil 

It is quite clear that seabirds and oil do not mix. There are a number of reasons why 

seabirds are exceptionally sensitive to oil pollution, and there are issues that need further 

attention to make us understand why untreated seabirds die even from a small spot of oil on 

their feathers. 

Seabirds depend on the seas and oceans to such a degree that land is an adverse 

environment for them (Schreiber & Burger 2002). Like other birds, however, seabirds need to 

incubate their eggs on land. For many seabird species, this periodic phase in their breeding 

cycle is the only time they even approach the coast. The entire juvenile and immature phase 

and all of the non-breeding period is spent out at sea. Seabirds are fully adapted to life at 

sea thanks to their perfectly insulating, waterproof plumage and extensive subcutaneous fat 

layers to keep them warm. 

Mineral oils (or other fatty floating substances, see above) reduce the insulating 

properties of feathers by destroying the fine structure that keeps out water droplets (Holmes 

& Cronshaw 1977, Rozemeijer et al. 1992). Only properly aligned and maintained feathers will 

ensure that water cannot penetrate to reach the skin, thus keeping the bird buoyant and 

insulated from the cold. Oil sticks to the feathers, causing them to mat and separate, thus 

impairing the waterproof properties and exposing the bird’s skin to seawater temperatures. 

This generally leads to hypothermia, especially in cold waters like the North Sea and the 

North Atlantic. As a behavioural response, birds will instinctively try to get the oil off their 

feathers by preening. Unfortunately, this often leads to a spreading of the oil over larger 

parts of the body, and more critically, to ingestion and inhalation of toxic compounds. 

Several studies have shown that ingestion has long-term effects such as a reduced 

reproductive success and lower winter survival rates (Leighton et al. 1983, Leighton 1993). 

As oiled birds struggle to maintain their body temperature and buoyancy, their feeding is 

reduced or totally impaired, thus further weakening their body condition and fat reserves. 

If close to shore, birds may choose to go on land to escape or reduce the effects of 

hypothermia. Whether on land or at sea, most oiled birds ultimately die due to hypothermia 

and/or starvation. 

When considering the effects of a surface pollutant such as oil, it is noteworthy that some 

seabird species are more aerial than others. Penguins cannot fly at all, auks have shortwings 

and heavy bodies and swim more than they fly in order to conserve energy, and 

several species become flightless on a periodic basis as a result of moulting all their flight 

feathers at once. Albatrosses, petrels, terns and gulls are examples of aerial families that 

plunge in the water to catch their prey. Some species can roost on land (e.g., gulls and some 




21

22 


as an issue 

Table 3 

Types of seabird exposure to 

oil, short-term effects on 

performance and condition, and 

prospects for self-cleaning and 

survival (in the absence of 

human intervention). These 

prospects are described for the 

more vulnerable and sensitive 

seabird species that have 

limited or no possibilities of 

sustaining themselves when 

having to leave the water for a 

stay on land. 

Box 1 

Type 1 oiled 100% 


waterfowl), while others are fully pelagic. A few species (such as frigatebirds and 

cormorants) combine life at sea with a plumage that needs to dry after contact with water. 

In general terms, the truly pelagic and least aerial species are the most vulnerable to oil 

pollution. Many of these primarily swimming species feed by diving, and some, like 

guillemots, forage at spectacular depths (150m or more; Piatt & Nettleship 1985, Lovvorn & 

Jones 1991, Weimerskirch & Sagar 1996). Diving deeper than 20 or 30m exerts considerable 

pressure on plumage, which therefore needs to be in perfect condition to avoid loss of 

insulation. 

The extent to which oil affects seabirds can be divided into four categories (Table 3). 

The first of these (see examples in Box 1) corresponds to animals that are immediately 

immobilized by contact with the oil. Birds in this situation are entirely covered with the 

substance and are unable to move their wings and feet and are often unable to breathe 

without inhaling oil. In this state, birds will find it extremely hard to stay afloat with their 

head above water. Because of the rapidity of this smothering effect of oil, any surviving 

casualties found washed ashore will still be in the same physical condition as when they 

first encountered the oil slick. Human intervention in such cases is limited to quickly 

cleaning off the oil so as to spare the reserves of birds that are otherwise in good condition. 

Type Amount of oiling Effect Self-cleaning Survival 

prospects prospects 

1 Completely (100%) covered Immobilisation, suffocation Impossible None 

in thick layer of oil 

2 10-99% of plumage Partial immobilisation, Impossible None 

contaminated with oil lossof insulating properties 

of feathers, hypothermia, 

starvation 

3 Small specks of oil Loss of insulating properties Rarely successful Bleak 

(

Type two casualties are heavily oiled and have disrupted plumage over most of their 

body, but can still breathe freely and usually are able to swim and stay afloat. Birds in this 

state will mostly preen, even though wing movements may be hampered by sticky oil. 

Preening will not have the desired effect however, and these birds will soon die from 

hypothermia and starvation. Even though fouled by oil, pelagic seabirds will avoid the 

shore unless they are able to find a quiet location free of predators and human activities. 

Stranded casualties of this kind usually have depleted fat reserves and are greatly 

weakened, often suffering also from pneumonia, hypothermia and other physical problems. 

Human intervention in this case would involve providing immediate attention to both the oil 

(cleaning) and the birds’ physical condition. 

The third category groups seabirds that have been only slightly oiled. Small amounts of oil 

coming into contact with birds disrupt their plumage, but otherwise the animal’s physical 

condition is not affected, at least initially. The effect of this slight contact with oil will depend 

on a number of factors, such as the type of bird, the possibilities to leave the water and stay 

dry for a while, the time of year (ambient temperatures), the amount and the type of oil, and 

the possibility to feed. Divers, grebes, seaduck and auks will not normally survive this 

condition without human intervention. Species that are more airborne, such as gulls and 

terns, may be better suited to overcome this type of soiling by attempting to clean their 

feathers while avoiding direct contact with water as much as possible. Oiled seabirds in this 

category that are unable to deal with the problem and wash ashore as casualties are 

typically severely emaciated, suffering from depleted fat stores, atrophy of the breast 

muscles, gut inflammation, internal parasite infections, and pneumonia. By the time birds in 

this condition are found on beaches, dealing with the oil that started the problem in the first 

place is far less urgent than attending to the birds’ immediate health requirements. 

The fourth category of contamination is usually overlooked. Birds swimming through an oil 

sheen may not become visibly contaminated, but the hydrocarbons do adhere to the 

feathers. Very fresh corpses of auks having suffered this kind of oiling typically have a 

purple or blue shine to their white under-parts, which is barely visible except under perfect 

light conditions. Only the tips of the feathers may become slightly disrupted and, with 

exceptions, birds in this condition are normally able to clean themselves and survive. 

The ‘classic’ oil incidents are usually remembered because of the Type 1 casualties, 

which provide sensational media coverage and which are therefore shown as examples of 

the damage. However, it is important to remember that all four categories of exposure occur, 

and that relatively less oiled casualties originate from birds entering into contact with an oil 

spill at its periphery, or in later phases of the incident. The second and third categories of 

exposure are commonly attributed to chronic oil pollution, rather than large-scale accidents. 

Beached-bird surveys conducted in the Netherlands since 1970 have shown that of 40,710 

intact corpses of oiled Black-legged Kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla and large auks (Common 

Guillemot, Razorbill and Atlantic Puffin Fratercula arctica), 54% showed signs of only slight 

contamination (categories 3 and 4). These casualties were unlikely to get much attention or 

cause public outcry, even although oil was the principal cause of death. 

Mineral oil is not the only substance that affects seabirds. Any floating, fatty substance 

capable of disrupting a bird’s plumage is potentially lethal (Newman & Pollock 1973, Anon. 

1975, McKelvey et al. 1980, Camphuysen et al. 1999). An example is shown in Table 3, where 

a Type 1 victim was entirely covered in Polyisobutylene (Camphuysen et al. 1999). 

The molecular features of environmental contaminants causing disruption of bird plumage 

are generally quite well known (Rozemeijer et al. 1992), and laboratory experiments have 

demonstrated the threshold level of water cleanliness necessary for a bird’s plumage to stay 

healthy during prolonged contact with water (Swennen 1977). A topic of interest beyond the 

scope of this report, and certainly beyond that of the legal framework for reducing marine oil 

pollution, is the need for a more thorough investigation into the source of non-mineral oil 

pollution at sea (Timm & Dahlmann 1991). This is particularly pertinent given the apparently 

increased frequency of discharges of such substances (Hak 2003). 




23

24 


as an issue 

Below 

Oiled Mute Swans on a frozen 

shoreline near Ristna, northwest 

Estonia, 13th February 

2006 (C.J. Camphuysen) 


Box 2 Oil pollution as a never-ending story 

The Baltic Sea is a Special Area under MARPOL Annex I (Box 4, in chapter “Reducing 

levels of oil pollution, and minimising the effects of spills”) and the discharge of oil is 

forbidden since the MARPOL convention entered into force in October 1983. The Baltic 

Sea is an important marine area for wintering birds, notably seaducks (Durinck et al. 

1994). Ship traffic is intense and many hundreds of oil spills are recorded along the 

major shipping lanes each year, indicating blatant disregard of MARPOL regulations (c.f. 

chapter “Reducing levels of oil pollution, and minimising the effects of spills”). 

Systematic surveys of oiled birds in southern Gotland (Sweden) showed that tens of 

thousands of Long-tailed Ducks Clangula hyemalis were affected by oil each year in the 

central Baltic Sea (Larsson & Tydén 2005). Many seaducks have a life history in which 

variable or low productivity is compensated by relatively high adult survival. This fragile 

balance is however jeopardised by the devastating effects of oil spills on the survival 

rates of those adults, and as a result, seaduck and seabird populations in general are 

very susceptible. 

In late January 2006, the effects of oil in the Baltic Sea were manifested once again. 

In the coastal waters of Estonia a vessel that could not be identified released an 

unknown quantity of oil. The mystery spill killed at least several thousand waterfowl, 

including Long-tailed Ducks, Goldeneye Bucephala clangula and Mute Swan Cygnus 

olor. The real damage has yet to be investigated, for severe winter temperatures caused 

the sea to freeze over, and the oil to disappear under snow and ice. Numerous 

casualties will never be detected, due to the abundance in Estonia of scavengers such 

as Wolf Canis lupus, Red Fox Vulpes vulpes, Hooded Crow Corvus cornix, Raven Corvus 

corax, and White-tailed Eagle Haliaetus albicilla. The onset of spring raised even greater 

concern: during this period, nearly 4 million waterfowl are known to migrate through 

Estonian coastal waters, using the area as a stopover. If the oil had re-appeared from 

below the ice, even more damage could be expected.

6. 

Measuring the scale 

and impact of chronic 

oil pollution 


Visible signs of marine oil pollution include sightings of slicks at sea, 

observations of discharging or leaking vessels or offshore installations, oil on 

beaches, and oiled seabirds or other marine wildlife. One does not have to 

travel far before encountering telltale signs of chronic marine oil pollution. 

Weathered oil residues in the form of tar balls can be found on nearly any tide 

line, at any time. Observation of roosting gulls on winter beaches will 

eventually result in witnessing the desperate preening of individuals trying to 

get rid of the oil plastering their feathers. Remarkably “tame” and usually 

slightly oiled auks lingering in harbours, sitting low in the water and constantly 

flapping and preening are other clear signs of animals in distress and further 

signals of the omnipresence of chronic oil pollution. Identifying the problem is 

one thing, but assessing and measuring its scale and impact is another. 

The scale of chronic oil pollution can be measured directly and indirectly. 

Direct measurements include visual observations during aerial surveys at sea 

or during beach patrols, or remote sensing observations from fixed platforms, 

aircraft or satellites. Indirect measurements include statistics obtained in ports 

(e.g., discharge of oily waste in port reception facilities), and results of 

beached bird surveys where corpses of beached seabirds are systematically 

checked for the presence or absence of oil in the feathers. Each approach has 

its advantages and limitations. The main challenge is ensuring that monitoring 

schemes are compatible with each other and are able to produce large-scale 

(international) overviews on a regular basis. The possibility to detect oil slicks 

from space (with satellites such as RadarSat) is a recent and very promising 

technology, but with little scope for detecting historical trends. Moreover, this 

technology is very expensive, and involves private companies that are 

reluctant to produce any information at low cost and on a regular basis. 

Aerial surveys for oil pollution are common in most European countries with sea 

coasts, but methodologies and technologies vary and have changed over time. 

Surveys are planned independently of each other, they are weather-dependent, 

and very few attempts to analyse temporal trends have been published. 

(This can be considered a pessimistic view however, particularly because in 

comparison to most regions of the world the North Sea has the best and most 

intense programme of beached bird surveys and aerial surveillance). 


25

26 

6. Measuring the scale 

and impact of 

chronic oil pollution 

Table 4 

Beached-bird surveys in Europe. 

Non-systematic reports (•) and 

the occurrence of systematic 

beached bird surveys (••) are 

indicated for each decade 

(from Camphuysen & Heubeck 

2001; see references therein). 


b. Beached-bird surveys 

Oiled birds found on beaches have been used as indicators of the oil problem since the 

earliest days of oil usage, in the first decade of the 20th century (Klerk de Reus 1901, Anon. 

1910, Verwey 1915, Camphuysen 1989). In those days the people who would raise the alarm 

with regard to the oil problem were independent civilians, such as concerned naturalists, 

who had no relationship with either the cause of the problem (maritime transportation), or 

with the implementation of any legislation. It took a while before systematic surveys were 

organised and could provide any accurate data (Bub & Henneberg 1954, Hautekiet 1955, 

Grenquist 1956, Mörzer Bruijns 1959, Mörzer Bruijns & Brouwer 1959, Camphuysen 1989), but 

since the 1950s an increasing number of countries have participated in what can be seen as 

an international beached bird survey programme (Camphuysen & Heubeck 2001; Table 4). 

Camphuysen & Van Franeker’s (1992) proposed seabird “oiling rate” index (defined as the 

proportion of birds found with oil on their plumage) has been widely accepted as a policy 

instrument and is used by many beached bird survey programmes around the North Sea and 

elsewhere. Beached-bird surveys serve a double function as indicators of the incidence of 

oil pollution, and as instruments for monitoring pollution events. The scope of these surveys 

is unique in that they also serve to visualise the impact of pollution, in terms of showing oiled 

casualties and providing concrete data of the damage suffered. 

In their Bergen Declaration of March 2002, the ministers responsible for the protection of 

the environment of the North Sea and the European Commission Member responsible for 

environmental protection (collectively referred to as the ‘North Sea Ministers’) decided to 

implement a number of selected monitoring programmes as pilot projects. Among these is 

the Ecological Quality Objective on marine oil pollution in the North Sea, using oil rates of 

dead seabirds. The use of oil-pollution data collected on beaches to shape policy has 

stimulated the continuation of beached bird surveys in recent years. The implementation of 

an EcoQO for seabirds and oil in the North Sea is thought to further boost beached bird 

survey programmes. In the set of EcoQOs for the North Sea, the stipulated guidelines 

concerning the incidence threshold of oiled Common Guillemots are specified under Issue 4 

(Seabirds), EcoQO element (f). The EcoQO, as agreed by the 5th North Sea Conference, 

stipulated that “the proportion of [oiled Common Guillemots] should be 10 % or less of the 

total found dead or dying, in all areas of the North Sea.” 

Belgium 

Britain 

Denmark 

Estonia 

Finland 

France 

Germany 

Ireland 

Latvia 

Lithuania 

Netherlands 

Norway 

Poland 

Portugal 

Spain 

Sweden 

Russia 

1910s 20s 30s 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s 

•• •• •• •• •• 

• • • • • •• •• •• •• 

• • • •• •• •• •• 

• • •• 

• • • • • 

•• •• •• •• 

•• •• •• •• •• 

• • • 

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• • • 

• •

The ICES Working Group for Seabird Ecology (ICES/WGSE) recommended in 2003 that 

trends in oil rates might be most easily reported as five-year running mean percentages. 

In line with this, the ICES/WGSE advised that before any conclusions pertaining to the 

objective being reached could be justified statistically, studies should undergo a minimum 

five-year period during which the average proportion of recorded common guillemots 

showing oil contamination should be 10% or less. ICES WGSE therefore suggested that the 

EcoQO should be amended to read as follows: 

The average proportion of oiled common guillemots should be 10% or less of the total 

found dead or dying in each of 15 areas of the North Sea over a period of at least 5 years. 

Sampling should occur in all winter months (November to April) of each year. 

This recommendation was adopted by OSPAR. 

Oil rates in Common Guillemots are high in comparison with many other species (see 

chapter “Sensitive species, sensitive areas”), reflecting their high vulnerability to oil. Stowe 

(1982) illustrated this on the basis of beached bird surveys in the 1970s and early 1980s 

(Figures. 3a & 3b). A later analysis confirmed the spatial patterns found, with oil rates in 

Common Guillemots in the Netherlands amounting to 88% between 1978 and 1991, 

(Camphuysen & Van Franeker 1992). Over a similar period (1980s) the respective oil rates of 

Figure 3a 

North Sea 

1 Shetland Islands (UK) 

2 Orkney and north coast of Scotland (UK) 

3 Duncansby Head to Berwick upon 

Tweed (UK) 

4 Berwick upon Tweed to Spurn Head 

(UK) 

5 Spurn Head to North Foreland (UK) 

6 line between North Forland and 

Belgian/French border to line between 

Cherbourg and Portland (UK, B, F) 

7 line between Cherbourg and Portland 

to Land's End to Ouessant (UK, F) 

8 mainland coast Belgian/French border 

to Texel (B, NL) 

Oil Rate 

In order to adequately describe spatial differences in North Sea oil rates, 

the area was divided into 15 sub-regions: 

25% 

50% 

75% 

Figure 3b 

9 North Sea coast Frisian Islands Texel 

to Elbe (NL, FRG) 

10 mainland and Wadden Sea coast 

Frisian Islands Texel to Elbe (NL, FRG) 

11 mainland coast and Wadden Sea coast 

Elbe to Esbjerg (FRG, DK) 

12 North Sea coast Wadden Sea Islands 

Elbe to Fanø (FRG, DK) 

13 mainland coast Esbjerg – Hanstholm (DK) 

14 east of line between Hanstholm to 

Kristiansund, north of line from Skagen 

to Gothenburg (N, DK, S) 

15 Kristiansund to Stadt (N) 

North Sea 


and impact of 


Figure 3a 

Mean proportions of gull 

corpses found oiled during 

international beached-bird 

surveys between 1971-81 

(from Stowe 1982). 

Oil Rate 

25% 

50% 

75% 

Figure 3b 

Mean proportions of auk 

corpses found oiled during 

international beached-bird 

surveys between 1971-81 

(from Stowe 1982). 


27

28 


and impact of 


Figure 4 

Differences in oil rates of 

Common Guillemots in Western 

Europe (data from Camphuysen 

1995, as published by Furness & 

Camphuysen 1997). 


Common Guillemots found in Germany, Denmark, Norway and the Shetland Islands were 

70% (Averbeck et al. 1992), 82% (Danielsen et al. 1990), 34% (K. Skipnes in litt.) and 11% 

(M. Heubeck in litt.). Furness & Camphuysen (1997) repeated the comparison with updated 

material in the mid-1990s (Figure 4), confirming the regional differences in oil rates and 

suggesting that pressure from oil pollution was greater for bird populations in the Channel 

and the southeastern North Sea than in the western and northern areas. An even more 

recent analysis has produced an image of the current situation (Figure 5), indicating that oil 

rates have declined substantially, but that the original pattern of high pressure in the areas 

with the most intense shipping was still intact (Camphuysen 2005). The available data 

indicates clear patterns in chronic oil pollution on a North Sea scale, while temporal trends 

indicate overall declines in oil rates. Oil rates among stranded birds in a well-studied 

country such as The Netherlands have substantially declined during the past 25 years 

(Figure 6). Although Common Guillemots still rank among the species with the highest oil 

rate values, even in this species the oil rate has almost halved since the late 1970s 

(Camphuysen 1995, 1998). There are similar signals in other countries around the North Sea, 

indicating that the pressure of chronic oil pollution is declining. 

On the German North Sea coast, for example, the oil rate of the Common Guillemot 

dropped from 80% at the end of the 1980s to 52% at the beginning of the 1990s, rising again 

to 62% at the end of that decade (Fleet & Reineking 2000). These trends compare well with 

the results of oil surveillance flights and other records of oil pollution in Germany. 

For example, a positive correlation was found between the trend in the number of oil 

incidents recorded in the Traffic Separation Scheme region by the Central Information 

Centre in Cuxhaven and trends in oil rates recorded for Guillemots on the German North Sea 

coast (Fleet & Reineking 2000). 

Figure 4 

North Sea 

Oil Rate 

25% 

50% 

75%

Figure 5 

North Sea 

Oil Rate 

Analysis of beached bird survey data also indicated that in only three out of the 15 subregions 

for which data are currently available were the oil rates of Common Guillemots 

within the 10% threshold as specified by the OSPAR EcoQO for that species. In six areas 

where they were calculated over a five-year period, oil rates for guillemots were still more 

than five times higher than they should have been. Recent data in some of the most polluted 

areas moreover suggest that initial declines in oil rates have slowed down or levelled out 

(Camphuysen 2003). 

The oiled-guillemot EcoQO is still a long way from being a tried and tested instrument, but 

immediate implementation is strongly recommended. At the same time, since the oiledguillemot 

EcoQO is of relevance only for the North Sea, the development of a similarly 

sensitive monitoring tool for other parts of Europe, notably in ecologically sensitive areas 

(c.f. chapter “Sensitive species, sensitive areas”) should be considered and if possible 

implemented shortly. 

3.0 

2.5 

Common Guillemots, 1976/77-2001 (n=26 seasons) 

2.0 

1.5 

1.0 

0.5 

0.0 

-0.5 

-1.0 

-1.5 

-2.0 

-2.5 

-3.0 

1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 

25% 

50% 

75% 

Figure 6 


and impact of 


Figure 5 

Mean oil rate (% oiled) of 

Common Guillemots in the North 

Sea between 1997/98 - 2001/02 

(i.e., excluding the Tricolor 

incident). 

Data SOTEAG, Martin Heubeck, 

RSPB Eric Meek and Sabine 

Schmidt, Instituut voor 

Natuurbehoud, Eric Stienen, 

Nederlandse Zeevogelgroep, 

Kees Camphuysen, Landesamt 

für den Nationalpark Schleswig- 

Holsteiniches Wattenmeer, Nds. 

Landesbetrieb für 

Wasserwirtschaft u. 

Küstenschutz (NLWK) and Verein 

Jordsand, David Fleet, Dansk 

Ornitologisk Forening, Henrik 

Skov, from Camphuysen (2004). 

Figure 6 

Significant decline in (logit- 

transformed) oil rates of 

Common Guillemots found dead 

along the North Sea coast in 

The Netherlands during the 

winters of 1976/77 (1976) to 

2001/02 (2002) (NZG/NSO 

unpublished data). 

From Camphuysen (2004). 

Logit 3.0 = 99.9% oiled 

logit 2.0 = 99% oiled 

logit 1.0 = 91% oiled 

logit 0 = 50% oiled 

logit -1.0 = 9% oiled 

logit -2.0 = 1% oiled 

logit -3.0 = 0.1% oiled. 


29

30 


and impact of 


N.B. 

55 o 

54 o 

53 o 

52 o 

Figure 7 

Example of oil slicks detected by 

aerial surveillance in 1994 and the 

locations of oil slicks relative to 

the major shipping lanes and 

traffic separation systems. 

The dotted line indicates the 

boundaries of the sector of the 

North Sea belonging to the 

Netherlands, where the aerial 

surveys were conducted 

(data: Directie Noordzee, 

Rijkswaterstaat, The Netherlands). 

Figure 7 

3 o 

3 o 


4 o 

4 o 

5 o 

c. Aerial surveillance 

Oil slicks temper wave movements and are highly visible from the air for the disruption they 

cause of wave patterns. Visual inspections of oil pollution have been conducted by aerial 

surveys in most north European countries since the 1970s (Kramer 1991, Schallier et al. 1996, 

EC JRC database). In The Netherlands, the results of aerial surveys are published in annual, 

monthly or bi-monthly overviews, and the results suggest that most slicks occur in the areas 

with the highest densities of shipping (Figures. 7 & 8). In the 1980s, remote sensing equipment 

enhanced the possibilities of detecting slicks with aerial surveys (Wijmans 1981). To identify an 

oil slick, visual inspection is however still required in order to determine its colour (J. Hak, 

pers. comm). Both visual inspection and remote sensing equipment are hindered by strong 

winds, and when these have a force of 6B or higher, reliable data cannot be collected. 

Aerial surveys have confirmed the downward trends in oil pollution identified by 

beached bird surveys in recent years, but also that discharges of oil are still frequent, 

even in the MARPOL Special Areas (e.g., 2001 EC JRC “Monitoring of Illicit Vessels 

Discharges, a Reconnaissance Study in the Mediterranean Sea”). 2 Aerial inspections are 

vital to catch trespassers red-handed and an aircraft in the air may be seen as the best 

preventive tool available to discourage crews from illegally discharging oil. On the other 

hand, beached bird surveys seem to demonstrate that rather severe cases of oil pollution 

continue to go undetected, despite aerial surveillance. A combination of monitoring 

programs is therefore recommended. 

5 o 

6 o 

6 o 

7 o 

0 20 40 60km 

SCHAAL 1:2.000.000 

7 o 

O.L. 

55 o 

54 o 

53 o 

52 o 

N.B. 

55 o 

54 o 

53 o 

52 o 

Figure 8 

Figure 8 

Composite map showing oil slicks 

detected by aerial surveillance 

between 1995-2000, and the 

locations of oil slicks relative to 

the major shipping lanes and 

traffic separation systems 

(data: Directie Noordzee, 

Rijkswaterstaat, The Netherlands). 

2 See Chapter “Laws and Programs to reduce levels of oil pollution, and minimising the effects of spills” 

3 o 

3 o 

4 o 

4 o 

5 o 

5 o 

6 o 

6 o 

7 o 

0 20 40 60km 

SCHAAL 1:2.000.000 

7 o 

O.L. 

55 o 

54 o 

53 o 

52 o

d. Detecting oil spills from space 

Fixed wing surveillance is technically and economically impossible to implement over the 

entire pollution responsibility zone of certain countries. Satellite surveillance using Synthetic 

Aperture Radar (SAR) is emerging as a complementary operational tool enabling 

reconnaissance across wide areas to help combat illegal discharges. A wealth of satellite 

images have been acquired since the mid-1980's by different space agencies and have 

shown features that indicate the occurrence of oil spills at sea. It has been foreseen that the 

forthcoming European Space Agency's Envisat, the Japanese Advanced Land Observing 

Satellite (ALOS) and the Canadian RADARSAT-II in conjunction with other internationally 

available earth observation satellites will play significant roles in continuous monitoring of 

oil spills (Harahsheh et al. 2004). Espedal (1999) aimed to improve the understanding of 

space-borne SAR imaging of surface slicks (areas where the short surface waves are 

dampened), and to develop a method of classification of such slicks, including those 

pertaining to oil spill and natural chemical-biological film. Oil spills and similar slicks have 

been studied and classified using SAR image expression, backscatter, geographical 

occurrence and climatic conditions. The supervised slick discrimination algorithm was 

developed in order to standardise the procedures and to ensure that the same criteria were 

applied to all slicks in SAR images. When used in conjunction with a database containing 

information on the typical properties of verified slick cases and a database listing possible 

sources of pollution, this algorithm will improve the ability to classify slicks. 

The remote sensing of marine pollution from space was recognised as ‘a challenge’ in the 

early 1990s (Muller-Karger 1992), and judging by the Minutes of the European Group of 

Experts on Satellite Monitoring of Sea-based Oil Pollution (EGEMP 2005), this technique is 

still a long way from becoming a comprehensive detection and monitoring system (Anon. 

2002b, Febre 2003). 

In November 2005 the EC Joint Research Centre (Minutes of the EGEMP 2005) presented 

an ongoing study based on a new automatic technique (object-based) for detecting oil spills 

in satellite imagery. With this new automated methodology, full SAR high resolution can be 

processed from image scenes. The methodology relies on the object-oriented approach and 

uses image segmentation techniques in order to detect dark formations. 

The detection process makes use of two specially developed empirical formulas, which also 

permit the classification of oil spills according to their brightness. A broad classification 

method is used to identify dark formations as oil spills or similar objects. In this way, a 

variety of slick-types can be successfully detected: fresh oil spills, fresh spills affected by 

natural phenomena, oil spills without clear stripping, small linear oil spills, oil spills with 

broken parts and amorphous oil spills. 

Belgium is an end-user of the MARCOAST North Sea Oil Spill Service and begun using an 

operational satellite service for oil detection at sea. The satellite images provide an extra 

“first alert” component within the aerial surveillance programme and the satellite service 

will be further validated. The policy framework supporting this satellite service is Belgium’s 

‘zero tolerance plan’ for the North Sea. This plan proposes to use new surveillance 

techniques based on satellite data to supplement existing aircraft-based surveillance of 

marine oil pollution. Norway and the United Kingdom have experience interfacing satellite 

images with Automatic Identification System (AIS) data. Their aim is to identify ships and to 

backtrack routes using satellite images. The AIS system in Norway is already well 

developed, consisting of 35 AIS stations that cover an area of 30-70 nautical miles. Further 

tests are in progress. 


and impact of 



31

32 


and impact of 



e. Standardising the data 

An international overview of oil pollution in Europe is hard to obtain (Joint Research Centre 

2005). The OCEANIDES project is a recent attempt to overcome these difficulties and to 

collate data from satellites, vessels, and aircrafts through the cooperation of coastguards 

and frontier guards for regional sea basins (Baltic, Mediterranean, North Sea and so forth). 

Despite good intentions and collaboration from contacted bodies, the database developed 

very slowly. Firstly, data were collected for prosecution rather than for statistical purposes. 

Flight coverage may have been confidential for national security reasons. Data 

heterogeneity was considerable, and data collection was tied up to national policies and 

monitoring capacities. Data could be stored in XML (GML), Excel, MS-Word or any 

database format, but even if the same software was used, data presentation and coding 

were very different. Semantics were inconsistent, so that similar qualifications could have 

a different meaning. 

Report formats were heterogeneous. In some cases data that had been collected were no 

longer available, whether due to a lack of policy for keeping such information, or companies 

having folded, or because critical staff had left the relevant organisation. The obvious first 

step was therefore to standardise nomenclature and database formats and to transform all 

collected data into XML standard or shapefiles before loading any information into the 

common database. The database and GIS web server will be installed on the JRC site 

(http://dma.jrc.it/oceanides/).

7. 

Chronic oil pollution 

in Europe 


The sources of chronic oil pollution are diverse, and estimates of total 

quantities dumped or released in the marine environment vary widely 

(GESAMP 1993). Chronic oil pollution should refer to mineral oil only, but in 

fact, numerous lipophilic substances are involved, including mineral oil. 

Few studies were capable of discriminating between types. While incidents 

with non-mineral oils are known to occur (Camphuysen et al. 1999), and the 

adverse effects of which are well known (Bommelé 1991), we have insufficient 

knowledge about the scale and eventual trends in the levels of non-mineral oil 

pollutants in the marine environment within Europe (Timm & Dahlmann 1991). 

Studies in the 1980s and 1990s showed that ordinary ship fuel oils (notable 

heavy fuel oils, HFOs) deliberately discharged with bilge water are the main 

source of mineral oil pollution (Dahlmann 1985, Dahlmann 1987, Vauk et al. 

1987, Dahlmann et al. 1994). Over 700 plumage samples from oiled beached 

birds and from oiled beaches in Germany were analysed during 1998-2001, and 

revealed that over 90% of the samples contained (heavy) fuel oil residues that 

were probably part of bilge water discharges from large vessels (Fleet & 

Reineking 2001). 

Reported results from aerial surveys in the North Sea show a clear grouping 

of recorded slicks around the major shipping lanes in the south and in the 

southeast (Anon. 1995b, Schallier et al. 1996, Directie Noordzee 2001). 

The clustering of oil slicks around the areas of busiest marine shipping is 

clearly reflected by the oil rates of beached wildlife corpses (Figures 7 & 8 ). 

This is true for both past and recent years, suggesting that the main source of 

pollution (discharges from ships) has remained constant over time. It should 

be stressed, however, that there is little concrete information regarding 

pollution sources in recent years. 


33

34 




b. Oil spill database 

At the 4th Meeting of EGEMP and OCEANIDES (Ispra, 25th – 26th October 2005), the EC Joint 

Research Centre proposed compiling a European atlas and database of oil spills in the 

waters around Europe. This initiative was reinforced in the OCEANIDES project and a 

detailed presentation was given during the final workshop in 2005. The JRC started to work 

on the European atlas in relation to classifying oil spills in the Mediterranean Sea. This goal 

was better achieved by dividing the Mediterranean Sea into zones (e.g., Ligurian Sea), 

which facilitated the comparison of data needed to describe European oil spills with 

statistics. Due to the particular interest of Regione Marche (Regional Italian Authority), the 

work was focused on the Adriatic Sea. The analysis of data led to the creation of an atlas of 

probable oil spills during the years 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 and summer 2004. In addition, the 

JRC started to build a user-friendly (MySQL) database of oil spill data. A parallel activity was 

to carry out near real-time detection of oil spills. This activity is in progress and several tests 

were made in August and September 2005 in the Adriatic Sea. The results can then 

automatically be inserted in the SERAC oil spill database. The future aim will be to create a 

web-based interface. This user-friendly tool should integrate the above-mentioned European 

atlas and the oil spill database. The web-based interface will provide users with information 

and maps related to the European sea of interest (http://dma.jrc.it/oceanides/). 

During the first year of the project, over 6,000 oil spills were recorded, 2,100 of which were 

detected in the Baltic Sea (by aircraft, 1998-2002), 1,868 in the North Sea (by aircraft, 1998- 

2001), and 1,638 in the Mediterranean (by satellite, 1999). By the end of the project, the data 

contained information on 17,650 oil spills all over Europe. Summary maps can be 

downloaded as PDF files at http://serac.jrc.it/midiv/maps/ and composites are reproduced 

below for the Mediterranean, the Baltic, the North Sea, and the Black Sea (Figures. 9 - 15 ). 

Note that there is no information available on oil spill densities for the Atlantic seaboard. 

c. Current situation 

The recent data from high tech remote sensing equipment clearly show that European 

waters are by no means free of oil spills. Nearly 20,000 oil spills were detected over a sixyear 

period (3 years in some areas; Figures 9 to 15 ). Note that the areas shown above are 

all Special Areas, as defined by MARPOL Annex I (c.f. chapter “Reducing levels of oil 

pollution, and minimising the effects of spills”). Most of these areas have been in existence 

since MARPOL became established in 73/78 and the North Sea since 1999. Special Areas 

are regions where deliberate discharges are supposedly forbidden, yet the maps of the EC 

Joint Research Centre clearly show that this is not the case. Despite this evidence, most 

researchers have concluded that the amount of oil spilled, the amount of oil washing ashore 

and the proportions of oiled beached birds have declined over the past three decades. 

The JRC database provides no historical information further back than the late 1990s, 

because the technical means to construct these overviews were not yet developed in 

earlier years. Given the observed declines in other datasets, one can only wonder what 

composite maps for chronic oil pollution would have looked like in the 1960s. The information 

reporting oil spills has not been very clear (e.g., Anon. 1992ab, 1995b, 1996, 1997). 

There is a perfect match between the distribution of spills detected in the North Sea (see 

above) and the spatial patterns of oil rates for beached Common Guillemots (Figures. 3-5, 

7-8 ), which further illustrates the usefulness of beached bird surveys as an instrument for 

monitoring chronic oil pollution (c.f. Camphuysen & Heubeck 2001, Fleet & Reineking 2001). 

Beached-bird surveys provide a historical perspective, and have shown that in most of the 

North Sea oil pollution must have been worse a few decades ago (Camphuysen 1998). 

The new database constructed by the EC Joint Research Centre is bound to give more 

consistent results in the years to come. This data, combined with the OSPAR EcoQO for oiled 

guillemots (if implemented), will be very useful to examine future trends in oil pollution and 

to steer management and policy to areas where immediate action is required.

55 o 0’0”N 

50 o 0’0”N 

45 o 0’0”N 

40 o 0’0”N 

35 o 0’0”N 

30 o 0’0”N 

Detected oil spills 

Mediterranean Sea - Years 1999 - 2002 

During the years 1999 to 2002, out of 11000 SAR images, the project MIDIV detected 7000 oil 

spills . This map should be linked with the map of SAR Image Density given that areas 

without spills could be related to areas with less SAR images at our disposal for detection. 

More information can be found on the website of the Joint Research Center - European 

Commission at: http://serac.jrc.it/midiv/ 

Source: EC MIDIV Project of JRC/IPSC. http://serac.jrc.it/midiv/maps/med/1999_2000_2001_2002_oilspills.pdf 

Figure 9 

N 

0 o 0’0” 

0 75 150 300 NM 

0 125 250 500 Km 

0 o 0’0” 

10 o 0’0”E 20 o 0’0”E 30 o 0’0”E 

10 o 0’0”E 

20 o 0’0”E 

Figure 9 

Out of 11,000 SAR images 

collected between 1999 and 

2002, the MIDIV project 

detected 7000 oil spills in the 

Mediterranean Sea. This map 

should be linked with the map 

of SAR Image Density, given 

that areas without spills could 

be related to areas with less 

SAR images at our disposal for 

detection. 



30 o 0’0”E 

Legend 

detected spills 

territorial waters 

Geographic Coordinate System 

Datum WGS 1984 


55 o 0’0”N 

50 o 0’0”N 

45 o 0’0”N 

40 o 0’0”N 

35 o 0’0”N 

30 o 0’0”N 

35

36 

45 o 0’0”N 

40 o 0’0”N 

35 o 0’0”N 

30 o 0’0”N 



Figure 10 

Brest 

Gibraltar 

Ceuta 

Melilla 

Valencia 

0 o 0’0” 

Legend 

Oil spill density 

high 

low 

no data 

main ports 

Barcelona 

Palma 

Mostaganem 

0 o 0’0” 10 o 0’0”E 20 o 0’0”E 30 o 0’0”E 



Mediterranean Sea - Years 1999 - 2002 

Source: EC MIDIV Project of JRC/IPSC. http://serac.jrc.it/midiv/maps/med/1999_2000_2001_2002_oilspill_density.pdf. 

10 o 0’0”E 

Genoa 

Ajaccio 

Algiers Annaba Bizerte 

Tunis 

Sfax 

Venice 

Ancona 

Tripoli 

Figure 10 

This map shows spills detected 

from 11,200 SAR images taken 

between 1999 and 2002 in the 

Mediterranean Sea. The density 

of spills has been normalised 

according to location, spill area 

and number of images available 

for their detection. 

Trieste 

Rijeka 

Palermo 

Naples 

Valletta 

Bari 

Catanzaro 

20 o 0’0”E 

Benghazi 

Piraeus Athens 

Iraklion 

Istanbul 

Canakkale 

Smyrana 

30 o 0’0”E 

Odesa 

Constanta 

Drumyat 

Alexandria Port Said 

Suez 

0 125 250 500 km 



N 

Mersin 

Beirut 

Haifa 

Tel Aviv 

45 o 0’0”N 

40 o 0’0”N 

35 o 0’0”N 

30 o 0’0”N

65 o 0’0”N 

60 o 0’0”N 

55 o 0’0”N 


HELCOM - Baltic Sea - Years 1998 - 2004 

From 1998 to 2004, a total of 2,695 oil spills were detected in the Baltic Sea by the aerial 

surveillance of certain members of the Helsinki Convention (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, 

Germany, Latvia, Poland and Sweden). It should be noted that the density of spills is closely 

related to the extent of surveillance, which varies from one area to the other, and that no 

data was available for Lithuania and Russia. 

Source: EC MIDIV Project of JRC/IPSC. http://serac.jrc.it/midiv/maps/baltic/oilspill_helcom_1998_2004.pdf 

Figure 11 

N 

Denmark 

Sweden 

Poland 

20 o 0’0”E 

Lituania 




10 o 0’0”E 20 o 0’0”E 30 o 0’0”E 

Russia 

Estonia 

Latvia 

0 

30 o 0’0”E 

Russia 

Legend 

Detected spills 

no data 

territorial waters 

37.5 75 150 NM 

0 75 150 300 KM 




65 o 0’0”N 

60 o 0’0”N 

55 o 0’0”N 

37

38 

65 o 0’0”N 

60 o 0’0”N 

55 o 0’0”N 



N 



HELCOM - Baltic Sea - Years 1998 - 2004 

This map of oil spill density is derived from the spills detected in the Baltic Sea from 1998 to 

2004 by the aerial surveillance of certain members of the Helsinki Convention (Denmark, 

Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Poland and Sweden). It should be noted that that the 

density of spills is closely related to the amount of surveillance, which varies from one area 

to the other, and that no data was available for Lithuania and Russia. 

Source: EC MIDIV Project of JRC/IPSC. http://serac.jrc.it/midiv/maps/baltic/density_oil_helcom_1998_2004.pdf 

Figure 12 

Denmark 

Sweden 

Poland 

20 o 0’0”E 

Lituania 


10 o 0’0”E 20 o 0’0”E 30 o 0’0”E 

Russia 

Estonia 

Latvia 

0 

30 o 0’0”E 

Russia 

Legend 


high 

low 

no data 

37.5 75 150 NM 

0 75 150 300 KM 



65 o 0’0”N 

60 o 0’0”N 

55 o 0’0”N

85 o N 

60 o N 

55 o N 

50 o N 

45 o N 


Bonn Agreement - North Sea - Years 1998 - 2004 

From 1998 t0 2004, as represented in this map, a total of 4900 oil spills were detected in the 

North Sea by the surveillance of the members of the Bonn Agreemment (Belgium, Denmark, 

France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom). 

Note that the density of spills is closely related to the amount of surveillance which varies 

from one area to the other. 

Source: http://serac.jrc.it/midiv/maps/northsea/aerial/oilspill_bonn_1998_2004.pdf 

Figure 13 

Zones of 

surveillance 

Ireland 

0 

UK+FR 

UK 

5 o W 

NO 

DK 

GE 

NL 

UK+FR+E 

50 100 200 NM 

0 100 200 400 Km 



SE 

United Kingdom 

0 o 

France 

5 o E 10 o E 

Netherlands 

Belgium 

Norway 

Legend 

Denmark 

Germany 


Territorial waters 

5 o W 5 o E 10 o 0 E 

o 

More information can be found on the website of the Joint Research Centre - European 

Commission at http://serac.jrc.it/midiv/ 

N 

65 o N 

60 o N 

55 o N 

45 o N 




39

40 



85 o N 

60 o N 

55 o N 

50 o N 

45 o N 



Bonn Agreement - North Sea - Years 1998 - 2004 

Map of oil spill density showing spills detected in the North Sea (1998 to 2004) by the aerial 

surveillance of the members of the Bonn Agreement (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, 

Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom). 

Note that the density of spills is closely related to extent of surveillance, which varies from 

one area to the other. 

Source: http://serac.jrc.it/midiv/maps/northsea/aerial/density_oil_bonn_1998_2004.pdf 

Figure 14 

Zones of 

surveillance 

Ireland 

0 

UK+FR 

UK 

5 o W 

NO 

DK 

GE 

NL 

UK+FR+E 

50 100 200 NM 

0 100 200 400 Km 



SE 


0 o 

France 

5 o E 10 o E 

Netherlands 

Belgium 

Norway 

Legend 

Denmark 


Germany 

5 o W 5 o E 10 o 0 E 

o 

More information can be found on the website of the Joint Research Centre - European 

Commission at http://serac.jrc.it/midiv/ 

high 

low 

N 

65 o N 

60 o N 

55 o N 

45 o N

45 o 0’0”N 

40 o 0’0”N 


Black Sea - Years 2000, 2001, 2002 

Out of 1,840 SAR images, the MIDIV project detected 700 oil spills in the Black Sea during 

the years 2000 to 2002. The oil spill density has been spatially normalised to spill width and 

the number of images available for the detection. 

Source: EC MIDIV Project of JRC/IPSC. http://serac.jrc.it/midiv/maps/blacksea/2000_2001_2002_oilspills.pdf 

Figure 15 

N 

Romania 

Bulgaria 

Turkey 

Moldova 

30 o 0’0”E 

Ukraine 

35 o 0’0”E 

Turkey 



40 o 0’0”E 

Russia 

30 o 0’0”E 35 o 0’0”E 40 o 0’0”E 

0 

Legend 

Spills detected 

high density 

low density 

no data 

Georgia 

25 50 100 NM 

0 50 100 200 Km 




45 o 0’0”N 

40 o 0’0”N 

41

42 

Table 5 

Factors used by King & Sanger 

(1979) to assess oil vulnerability 

of birds in the northeast Pacific. 

a) Range 

8. 

(entire world population) 

1 - Breeding range size 

2 - Length of migration route 

3 - Winter range size 

4 - Marine orientation 

b) Population 

5 - Population size 

6 - Productivity 

(clutch size and age at first 

breeding) 

c) Habits 

7 - Roosting 

8 - Foraging 

9 - Escape 

(reaction to disturbance) 

10 - Flocking on water 

11 - Nesting density 

12 - Specialisation 

(generalist versus specialist) 

d) Mortality 

13 - Hunted by man 

14 - Animal depredations 

15 - Non-oil pollution 

16 - History of oiling 

e) Exposure 

(whereabouts through the year) 

17 - Spring 

18 - Summer 

19 - Autumn 

20 - Winter 


Sensitive species, 

sensitive areas 


To understand why certain spills have been more devastating than others in 

terms of their effect on marine wildlife, it is important to consider that different 

species and areas vary in terms of their sensitivity to oil. The sensitivity of 

seabirds depends largely on behavioural characteristics and species-specific 

differences in terms of the risk of exposure to oil. The sensitivity of sea areas 

depends mainly on the numbers and behaviour (e.g., feeding, roosting, 

passage) of sensitive seabird species occurring there. By way of example, it is 

perfectly understandable why Common Guillemots figure as prominent 

casualties in most northern European oil spills, but seldom ever in 

Mediterranean incidents. A spill in Italian waters in summer is bound to have a 

very different effect on marine wildlife than a spill of similar size and oil type in 

winter in the Skagerrak (northern North Sea). 

b. Methods for assessing seabird vulnerability to 

oil pollution 

The scale of vulnerability of seabirds depends not only on numbers present but also on 

behavioural and other characteristics of the species involved. Several studies have 

examined ways of assessing these characteristics and species-specific sensitivity to oil 

pollution, as measured by Oil Vulnerability Indices. 

The first publication to systematically address this issue for seabirds was that by King & 

Sanger (1979). They ranked 176 species that depend on marine habitats in the north-eastern 

Pacific on the basis of 20 factors affecting their survival (Table 5 ). Each of these factors was 

given a score of 0, 1, 3, or 5 respectively representing no relevance, low relevance, medium 

relevance or high relevance of that factor in increasing sensitivity to oil pollution. The scores 

for each of the 20 factors were summed to provide an overall oil vulnerability index for each 

species (maximum score 20 x 5 points = OVI 100). Scores ranged from 88 for some murrelets 

and auklets down to 19 for the Marsh Hawk, a raptor species. The authors noted that scores 

for several taxa would alter greatly if sub-species were used instead of species, indicating 

the importance of choice of taxonomic level. 

Drawing upon the judgement of experts, Tasker & Pienkowski (1987) allocated three 

categories of oil pollution vulnerability (very high, high and moderate) to 37 North Sea 

species of seabird sharing three key characteristics: 1) the species spend a substantial 

period of their lives on surface water; 2) the North Sea is important for a large proportion of 

the global population of the species; 3) the species are globally rare. Tasker et al. (1990) 

applied the same basis of categorisation to species living in waters west of Britain. In both 

cases, the vulnerability rating was combined with information on the marine distribution of 

the bird species, in order to identify areas in which concentrations of seabirds would be 

more vulnerable to oil pollution.

Anker-Nilssen (1987) assessed 17 factors that make a species vulnerable to oil 

pollution, at both individual and population levels (Table 6 ). These factors were placed in 

a chain of consequences (presence, time at sea when in area, exposure to oil, possibility 

of injury from oil and effects of oiling) and given a “vulnerability score”. If any one of these 

links in the chain of events were nil, then total vulnerability would be zero. Thus Anker- 

Nilssen’s vulnerability index was calculated as a product of the vulnerability in these five 

groups. The 17 factors were also weighted for their relative importance. After further 

calculation, the index was used to assign either low, moderate or high vulnerability to 

each bird in a given area. 

Camphuysen (1989) applied a similar scoring system to that of King & Sanger (1979) to 

quantify the oil vulnerability of all regularly occurring species of seabirds in the North Sea. 

Camphuysen & Leopold (1998) and Camphuysen et al. (1999) narrowed down the number of 

‘survival factors’ to 14 (Table 7). 

Table 7 

Factors used by Camphuysen 

(1989) to evaluate seabird 

vulnerability to oil pollution in 

the southern North Sea. 

Range 

1 - Breeding 

2 - Migration 

3 - Wintering 

4 - Marine orientation 

Behaviour 

5 - Roosting 

6 - Foraging 

7 - Reaction to disturbance 

8 - Flocking 

9 - Nesting density 

10 - Specialisation 

Exposure 

(whereabouts through the year) 


12 - Summer 

13 - Autumn 


In order to evaluate the risk of oil pollution in the southern 

North Sea these factors were combined with an oil rate 

figure (based on beached bird surveys) and numbers of 

seabirds occurring in that area. 

With the help of expert judgement, Speich et al. (1991) 

allocated scores to 14 factors (in three groups) in order to 

calculate a Bird Oil Index (BOI) for Puget Sound (Table 8 ). 

The BOI scores reflected the importance of the geographic 

region for the species examined. These scores were further 

refined by multiplying them by species abundance, 

expressed as counts made in each study site within the 

region. This level of analysis can go even further when 

seasonal variation in these numbers is taken into account. 

Within Puget Sound, these seasonal and site-specific BOI 

scores were ranked to indicate which areas were of 

relatively greater importance. 

Table 8 

Elements used by Speich et al. (1991) to calculate a Bird Oil Index for 

Puget Sound. 

Vulnerability of species determined by behaviour 

1 - Night roosting 

2 - Escape behaviour 

3 - Flocking on water 

4 - Nesting concentration 

5 - Feeding specialisation 

Vulnerability of species by population characteristics 


7 - Reproductive potential 

8 - Breeding distribution 

9 - Winter distribution 

10 - Seasonal exposure to marine habitats 

Significance of area to North American population 


12 - Summer 

13 - Autumn 


8. Sensitive species, 


Table 6 

Factors used by Anker-Nilssen 

(1987) to describe the sensitivity 

of seabirds to oil pollution. 

Individual vulnerability 

1 - Time in area 

2 - Time at sea 

3 - Area utilisation 

4 - Behaviour at sea 

5 - Shore affinity 

6 - Possibility of reaction 

7 - Flight capability 

8 - Physical fitness 

9 - Recovery capability 

Population vulnerability 

10 - Degree of exposure 


12 - Flocking tendency 

13 - Frequency of juveniles 

14 - Reproductive potential 

15 - Population trend 

16 - Proportion of population 

at risk 

17 - Potential immigration 


43

44 



Table 9 

Mean oil vulnerability index 

(OVI) scores for seabird 

families of the North Sea 

(Camphuysen 1989). 


Carter et al. (1993) and Webb et al. (1995) both used the method described in Williams et 

al. (1994) to assess seabird sensitivity to surface pollutants. Rather than rely on expert 

judgement, these authors based their scoring procedure on data derived from surveys and 

scientific studies, which they applied to four factors: 

a) Behaviour (scored using proportion of oiled birds found dead or moribund during 

beached bird surveys, and the ratio of airborne birds to seaborne birds during 

surveys out at sea). 

b) Regional population size (census data). 

c) Reproductive potential (mean clutch size, maximum clutch size and age at first 

breeding). 

d) Reliance on the marine environment (proportion of a population of birds feeding at 

sea as opposed to on land). 

Each of these four factors received a score ranging from 1 (low vulnerability) to 5 (very 

high vulnerability). To obtain an OVI score the factors were then summed as follows: 

OVI = 2a + 2b + c + d. Extra weighting was placed on factors a and b as these were 

considered to be the most important. The authors recognised that these scores were areaspecific 

and that the score for each species might change depending on the area 

considered. Carter et al (1993) and Webb et al (1995) then used the OVIs in combination with 

data from surveys at sea to map Area Vulnerability Scores (AVS): 

AVS = _ (species ln (_ + 1) x OVI) 

where _ is the density calculated for a species in the area and OVI is the oil vulnerability 

index for that species. 

Anon. (2002a) compared the various oil vulnerability indices and found significant 

relationships between OVIs calculated for the same species in different parts of the world. 

Significant correlations were found between OVIs scored for species represented in both 

King & Sanger (1979) and Camphuysen (1989) (RS = 0.572, P = 0.001, n = 32), between the 

proportion of oiled beached birds found in the Netherlands and the OVI scores of 

Camphuysen (1989) (RS = 0.685, P = 0.001, n = 21), between the OVIs of Camphuysen (1989) 

and of Williams et al. (1994) for the North Sea (RS = 0.454, p = 0.004, n = 37), and between the 

oil rate of beached birds found in the Netherlands and the OVI scores of Williams et al. 

(1994) (RS = 0.446, p = 0.015, n = 29; Appendix I). 

According to Camphuysen (1989), in Western Europe the seabird families most sensitive to 

oil pollution are auks, divers, cormorants and shags, gannets and boobies, and sea ducks 

(Table 9 ). 

Family Mean OVI Min Max 

Auks 77.2 65 - 86 

Divers 66.3 65 - 68 

Cormorants and shags 66.0 59 - 73 

Gannets and boobies 65.0 65 - 65 

Sea ducks 64.2 45 - 75 

Petrels and shearwaters 59.2 47 - 65 

Diving ducks 58.0 58 - 58 

Grebes 53.3 46 - 58 

Storm-petrels 50.3 49 - 54 

Terns 47.9 46 - 51 

Gulls 45.1 36 - 66 

Skuas 42.6 36 - 58 

Phalaropes 38.0 37 - 39

Moderately sensitive seabirds are petrels and shearwaters, diving ducks, grebes and 

storm petrels. Species of lower sensitivity are the terns, gulls, skuas, and phalaropes. 

There are notable exceptions to these family-based generalisations, however, such as the 

Black-legged Kittiwake, a gull species with a high sensitivity score (OVI 66). Phalaropes rank 

very low, but this status would change if the analysis took into account vulnerability to oil 

pollution in their main wintering grounds off the coast of Africa. It is noteworthy that 

phalaropes ranked significantly higher in the King & Sanger (1979) analysis, which focuses 

on an area where phalaropes are common. 

The formulation and use of oil vulnerability indices has progressed since they were first 

proposed. In essence, all indices score the sensitivity of a species to oil pollution. Some 

indices divide the determining factors between those that apply to the population as a whole 

(reproductive success, breeding densities, migratory movements, population size), and those 

that apply to the behaviour of individual birds (time on the water versus time spent in the air, 

escape responses to oil pollution, offshore versus onshore distribution, grouping 

tendencies). Indices allocating scores to each factor have often been based on expert 

judgement, where scientific data might have been more appropriate if available. 

Despite recent progress, there is still a degree of subjectivity in allocating score values and 

in weighting the factors against each other. By clearly describing the factors and the 

considerations involved, and by listing the values of each factor for each species, the quality 

of the index is open to judgement and to adjustments as and when appropriate. 

Factors relating to populations as a whole relate primarily to the ability of a population to 

recover from additional oil-induced mortality. Population size has been used in all 

vulnerability indices. This could either be the global or regional population, but often the 

choice has not been made explicit. The usual taxonomic level is species, though perhaps in 

some cases, sub-species or isolated population size might be more appropriate (King & 

Sanger 1979). It should be made clear that OVIs have not been evaluated for most European 

seabird taxa and most areas (Appendix II and Table 10 below). Species of the 

Macaronesian region (where drilling and transportation of oil is currently increasing) and 

the Mediterranean (where shipping pressure is intense) require the most attention. 

c. Methods for assessing area vulnerability to oil pollution 

King & Sanger (1979) suggested that if a species with a high OVI score occurs in an area of 

proposed oil and gas development then there would be a likely requirement for research 

funds, project modifications, contingency plans for disasters, and other conservation 

actions, while much less concern would be expressed for areas holding only low scoring 

Area Data for seabirds at sea OVI/area sensitivity Data availability 

Greenland/Iceland anecdotal data, local surveys not analysed data-deficient 

Svalbard surveys in southern part not analysed partly covered 

Barents Sea summer surveys, some in spring not analysed partly covered 

Norwegian Sea mainly nearshore surveys not analysed partly covered 

Faeroese waters extensive year-round surveys vulnerability atlas well covered, atlas 

North Sea extensive year-round surveys vulnerability atlas well covered, atlas 

Baltic extensive year-round surveys not analysed well covered, atlas 

West of Britain, 

Irish Sea, Ireland 

extensive year-round surveys vulnerability atlas well covered, atlas 

Channel, Celtic Sea extensive year-round surveys (UK) vulnerability atlas (UK) partly covered 

Bay of Biscay fragmented survey data not analysed data-deficient 

Atlantic off Portugal 

and Spain 

new studies just commenced not analysed data-deficient 

Macaronesia new studies just commenced not analysed data-deficient 

West Mediterranean new studies just commenced not analysed data-deficient 

East Mediterranean not known not analysed data-deficient 

Black Sea not known not analysed data-deficient 



Table 10 

Overview of current knowledge 

regarding the distribution of 

seabirds at sea in Europe, and 

of the attempts to evaluate 

species-specific OVIs and area 

vulnerability to oil pollution. 


45

46 




species. On a wider scale, if there is a choice for locating a risky development with a high 

probability of oil spills in areas with differing numbers of highly vulnerable birds, then 

planning agencies might choose to locate the development in the lower risk area. 

In addition, migratory movements between areas in winter, spring, summer, and autumn lead 

to shifts in seabird communities within those areas and hence lead to seasonal variation in 

the occurrence of species with high OVI scores. Therefore if within a particular area there is 

a choice with respect to the seasonal timing of a risky operation, planning agencies might 

choose to shift the operation to a time period when fewer highly sensitive species are 

present (e.g., Wiese & Ryan 2003). 

Assessing vulnerability therefore requires not only OVIs, but also temporal and spatial 

information pertaining to the relative occurrence of species within areas. King & Sanger 

(1979) included temporal information in their study as a factor of seasonal exposure. 

More recently, seabird density information for north-western European waters has been 

collected at sea during systematic surveys, enabling the relative occurrence of species 

within areas to be calculated on a seasonal or even monthly basis (Carter et al. 1993; Webb 

et al. 1995). Presenting such information in this way effectively creates “atlases of 

vulnerability”, which provide a much more precise tool for planning and emergency response. 

On a European scale, the most vulnerable bird families are divers, auks, cormorants, 

gannets, and seaducks. With few exceptions, these species breed at high latitudes in the 

temperate, sub-arctic and arctic zones, sometimes deeply inland (divers and seaduck). 

They winter in the Baltic, the North Sea and along the Atlantic seaboard between the 

Norwegian Sea and northwest Africa. During winter, much greater numbers and more 

species are at risk than in summer, and the distribution of the more vulnerable taxa 

extends further to the south. It therefore comes as no surprise that most of the damage 

caused by chronic oil pollution happens in winter and that most mass-mortality has been 

recorded in the areas indicated. This is particularly noteworthy when considering that only 

the Baltic and the North West European waters (i.e., North Sea, English Channel, Celtic 

Sea, Irish Sea and Atlantic waters to the west of Ireland) have been designated as Special 

Areas under MARPOL Annex 1 (Box 4, in “Reducing levels of oil pollution, and minimising 

the effects of spills”). 

This begs the question as to whether enough information has been gathered on such 

areas to facilitate appropriate action in the event of an oil spill. In order to evaluate the 

sensitivity of sea areas, information is required on the presence of seabirds, their OVI, and 

their seasonal occurrence at sea. When reviewing Europe’s sea areas in these respects, it 

becomes clear that (1) although there is substantial recent information on seabird 

distribution and migration patterns, large gaps of knowledge remain; (2) only some areas 

have been evaluated with regard to their sensitivity to oil pollution on the basis of marine 

wildlife present and species-specific OVIs; and (3) some of the worst recent spills in terms 

of casualties (i.e., Erika, Prestige) occurred in sea areas for which both OVI and seasonal 

occurrence data are lacking or at best incomplete. 

The sensitivity of European sea areas to chronic oil pollution is reviewed using 

information pertaining to the occurrence of the most sensitive bird families, the availability 

of high-quality data regarding species out at sea, and whether or not a recent evaluation of 

sensitivity to oil pollution has been undertaken or would be possible (Appendix III). 

The assessment of anticipated sensitivity to chronic oil pollution is based on general data 

pertaining to the distribution of birds in Europe (BWPi 2004), where possible on census data 

of seabirds at sea (Table 10 ), and on the species (and species-specific OVI) that occur in 

each area (see Appendix II ). 

A European overview of area sensitivity to oil pollution would be a useful future 

undertaking. A first step should be a complete analysis of OVI for all European taxa 

(Table 10 ), followed by a comprehensive summary of seabird survey data in all sea areas. 

This would lead to a balanced evaluation of the (anticipated or quantified, depending on the 

available data) sensitivity to oil pollution of inshore and offshore areas around Europe.




47

48 

9. 


The effects of chronic 

oil pollution on seabird 

populations 

a. Facts and fairy tales 

Estimates of seabird mortality associated with oil pollution are often expressed in many tens 

of thousands of casualties, sometimes even more. An examination of the data indicates that 

estimates tend to stray from true facts. Seabird mortality due to oiling is serious enough and 

the issue should not be undermined by artificially inflated guesses made just to impress the 

general public. 

One of the more famous claims is that as a consequence of the recurring heavy mortality 

by oil pollution, the numbers of Long-tailed Ducks Clangula hyemalis migrating through 

Finland by 1960 were reduced to 1/10 of the number recorded in the late 1930's (Bergman 

1961). In essence, it was suggested that several million Long-tailed Ducks had died from oil 

pollution within a few decades. The decline, however, was not well documented and recent 

data suggest that it may never have occurred (Durinck et al. 1993, 1994). The idea was 

however picked up by the media and transformed into factual data, eventually becoming a 

textbook example of the devastating effect of oil pollution. There is no doubt that the annual 

toll of chronic oil pollution in the Baltic was (and probably still is) horrendous and ethically 

unacceptable. It is quite likely that in combination with the extensive shooting, hunting and 

drowning of seaduck in the Baltic the populations of these species were depressed and 

unnaturally low. However, the absence of similar declining trends of other (equally sensitive) 

species in the region makes it extremely unlikely that oil was responsible for the 90% 

reduction observed in numbers of Long-tailed Ducks. 

The incident with the Danish tanker Gerd Maersk on Scharhörn ridge in the outer Elbe 

River in January 1955 resulted in the release, for salvage purposes, of 8000 tons of crude oil 

into the sea. At least 500,000 sea and water birds of 19 different species were estimated to 

have perished, mainly Common Scoters Melanitta nigra, as indicated by “test counts” 

(Goethe 1968). Even although the spill was clearly serious and the area sensitive, it is highly 

unlikely that more than 200,000 to 300,000 seabirds were present in the area and at risk. 

The quality of the test counts (i.e., sample size) and the factors used to reach the published 

estimate are very unclear. It is therefore wise not to accept such estimates at face value.

. Counts and drift experiments as tools 

To start discussing population level effects, some baseline data are required. First of all, the 

number of casualties needs be assessed as accurately as possible. Many oiled seabirds 

wash ashore eventually, dead or alive, and can be counted. Keeping track of the effects of 

chronic oil pollution on marine wildlife requires a well-established long-term monitoring 

programme, such as beached bird surveys, to document the fluctuating numbers of oil 

victims washing ashore through the year and under different conditions (Camphuysen & 

Heubeck 2001). Discrete spills require a short-term response, where during the entire period 

of the spill the numbers of birds washing ashore are counted (IPIECA 2004). 

Secondly, there must be an estimate of the proportion of casualties that did not wash 

ashore. Some corpses sink, or are blown offshore. Drift experiments (initiated to carefully 

assess the proportion of corpses that may go missing at sea given local currents and 

weather) have been conducted around the world with varying success to investigate how 

many corpses may never have reached the coast (Bibby & Lloyd 1977, Jones et al. 1978, 

Stowe 1982ab, Keijl & Camphuysen 1992, Hlady & Burger 1993, Colombé et al. 1996, Wiese & 

Jones 2001, Wiese 2003, Wiese & Ryan 2003, Arcos et al. 2004). One of the main outcomes of 

these experiments is that sinking rates (or ‘disappearance’ rates) are highly case-specific. 

Camphuysen & Heubeck (2001) reviewed a number of these experiments and concluded that 

local situations and weather conditions, as well as the tags used, led to very different results. 

Instead of extrapolating from the results of other drift experiments, the most sensible option 

in case of future oil incidents is to set up and perform a drift experiment during each event. 

Thirdly, there must be an estimate of the total number of birds affected. 

c. Offshore censuses: pre- and post-spill results 

Murphy et al. (1997) used data from pre- and post-spill surveys to assess the effects of the 

Exxon Valdez oil spill on the abundance and distribution of birds in Prince William Sound, 

Alaska. These authors conducted post-spill surveys in 10 bays that had been surveyed prior 

to the accident and that had experienced different levels of initial oiling from the spill (not 

oiled to heavily oiled). Changes in overall bird abundance across all bays between the prespill 

and post-spill sampling periods, and changes in abundance in non-oiled/lightly-oiled 

bays versus moderately to heavily oiled bays were used as indicators of oiling impacts. Of 12 

taxa examined for changes in overall abundance, 7 showed no significant change, 2 became 

more abundant, and 3 decreased their abundance during all three post-spill years. Of the 11 

taxa examined for differences in use of oiled versus oil-free habitats, 7 showed no 

significant changes, 1 exhibited a positive response to oiling, and 3 reacted negatively to 

initial oiling. 

They concluded that the impacts of this oil spill on abundance and distribution of birds 

were most evident in 1989, the year of the spill, and were most pronounced for Pigeon 

Guillemots Cepphus columba. By 1991, signs of recovery were evident for all taxa that had 

been impacted by initial oiling. Other studies in the same area were less conclusive and the 

debate is continued in the literature. The important point is that established monitoring 

programmes should be designed to provide information on pre-spill conditions. Information 

collected both before and after a spill is valuable for the examination of trends and the 

interpretation of data. 

Heubeck (1997b) was able to demonstrate the long-term impact of the Esso Bernicia oil 

spill on numbers of Great Northern Divers Gavia immer wintering in Shetland. Wintering 

Great Northern Divers showed great preference for reusing previous sites, and losses as a 

result of the spill were only very slowly replaced by new divers (recruits, or other adults) 

wintering in the bays that had been important to their predecessors before the spill had 

wiped them out. In this scenario, accurate counts mere made prior to, during and following 

the spill in order to evaluate its effect on local wintering population levels. 

9. The effect of 


on seabird populations 


49

50 

9. The effect of chronic 

oil pollution on 

seabird populations 


Stienen et al. (2004ab) used pre- and post-spill sea counts to evaluate the probable losses 

in the wintering populations of seabirds off the Belgian coast as a result of the Tricolor oil 

spill in winter 2002/2003. Castège et al. (2004) did the same in the Bay of Biscay prior to and 

following the Erika oil spill. Although the results of all these studies are interesting, their 

outcomes are far from clear. One of the assumptions of the European offshore studies 

appears to have been that wintering seabird populations are fairly stable and fixed, as was 

the case for the divers in Shetland, with little variation between years. We have very little 

factual evidence that this is actually true in wintering auks and seaduck. In fact, recent work 

in northwest Europe has shown that the variability in seabird species composition and 

overall abundance is very large, so that a reduction or increase in numbers at sea would not 

easily be detected by offshore surveys. 

d. Colony studies 

Seabird breeding colonies are a logical place to look for the effects of oil pollution at 

population level. The ICES Working Group for Seabird Ecology (ICES WGSE; ICES 2005) 

reviewed recent spills, and most of what follows is taken from their work. It is obvious that 

the effects of oil pollution will be more pronounced the smaller the affected population is in 

relation to the number of birds killed, but determining the size of the affected population is 

by no means simple (Camphuysen et al. 2005). The likelihood of detecting the impacts of oil 

spills will vary according to whether the population is stable, increasing or decreasing. 

Furthermore, the frequency of population monitoring in the years before the oil spill will 

influence the quality of the necessary base-line data. Pre- and post-spill datasets on 

(offshore) wintering populations are of equal importance. The same is true of data 

describing breeding population trends, particularly for species that breed widely and that 

are dispersed in very low densities, such as divers and seaducks (Camphuysen et al. 2005). 

Other important factors to take into account are the age distribution of the birds killed, 

and which natural processes are at work to regulate the population (Camphuysen et al. 

2005). Most seabird species are long-lived (40-50 years of age can be reached or even more) 

and they tend to reproduce slowly (small clutches), and then only after a rather prolonged 

phase of immaturity. It is well known that the population growth-rate of long-lived organisms 

is much more sensitive to variations in adult survival rates than in fecundity or juvenile 

survival rates (Croxall 1991). This means that the life of an adult is “worth” more to the 

population than the life of a juvenile, because a surviving adult is more likely to keep on 

reproducing. In most seabirds, recruitment to the breeding population occurs when the birds 

are between three and eight years old (although this can be up to 12 years old for Northern 

Fulmar Fulmarus glacialis). Therefore if mainly juveniles are killed, any effect on breeding 

populations will not be detectable for several years. In contrast, large adult mortality will 

cause an immediate reduction in the adult population, although not necessarily in the 

breeding population. The reason for this is that many seabird populations include substantial 

numbers of individuals who do not breed in a given year, even though they are 

physiologically capable of doing so. Such individuals are known as “floaters”, and 

effectively form a buffer population (Harris & Wanless 1995, Harris et al. 1998). If large 

numbers of “floaters” are available, even substantial adult mortality may not result in an 

immediate reduction in the size of the breeding population, because the places of the dead 

breeders are immediately filled. In general, however, effects on breeding populations should 

be larger and easier to detect when mainly adults are killed, than when juveniles are the 

main victims (Clobert & Lebreton 1991, Cairns 1992, Migot 1992, Paine et al. 1996, 

Camphuysen et al. 2005).

In cases when “floaters” buffer breeding populations against substantial mortality, as 

after an oil spill for example, there will be a greater turnover among breeders and this will 

be detectable by monitoring individually marked breeding birds. If unusually few marked 

birds turn up the next year (low return rate), or if survival is subsequently found to be low 

through capture-recapture analysis, the effect of an oil spill becomes apparent even in the 

absence of an observed population decline. This provides another example of how 

monitoring demographic parameters rather than just population size improves the ability to 

detect environmental changes and attribute them to natural or anthropogenic causes 

(Camphuysen et al. 2005). 

Unfortunately, for many populations there is a lack of understanding concerning the 

capacity for resilience, of natural fluctuations, and of the effect of other human impacts 

(Mosbech 2000). The primary question should be to ask which colonies are actually affected 

by the spill, and where population level effects should be investigated. Most of the impacts 

of oil-spills, whether incidental or from chronic oil pollution, are on wintering seabirds. Most 

oil-spills, whether incidental or chronic, affect wintering seabirds that are far from their 

breeding sites. 

e. Assessing the breeding origin of casualties 

To be able to measure population effects, good quality data should be obtained from the 

corpses collected during an oil spill. Apart from accurate information on numbers, species 

composition, sex ratio, and age structure, geographic breeding grounds should be 

investigated (Wiens et al. 1984, Heubeck et al. 2003, Wiese et al. 2004). Determining the 

geographic origin of the oiled birds is of major importance to assess the ecological impact 

of the spill in seabird populations, and information on possible “colonies of origin” is 

essential to plan post-spill monitoring. 

Standardized techniques are required and should be implemented to collect useful data. 

Information gathered should include the population structure of the impacted species. 

Ageing, sexing and assessing the origin of seabirds is not straightforward and requires 

specialist assistance (Anker-Nilssen & R¢stad 1981; van Franeker 1983). Ringed birds can 

give information about the origin of the affected seabirds, but relatively few individuals are 

ringed and the results are biased towards areas where ringing effort is high. 

f. Discussion 

The direct effects of oil pollution on seabirds at population-level, i.e., survival rates and 

age-structure, are rarely detected because specific long-term studies involving individually 

marked birds need to be in place in the area affected by the spill before it happens. 

These types of studies are becoming more common but are still relatively few in number 

(Camphuysen et al. 2005). More commonly, numbers of birds breeding in affected colonies 

are compared before and immediately after a spill, and sometimes this comparison is made 

in both affected and non-affected areas, the latter being considered the control against 

which the effect of the spill can be compared. Mosbech (2000) concluded that scientific 

knowledge is generally inadequate for making quantitative predictions of the impact of a 

large oil spill on bird populations. The immediate mortality can only be crudely estimated, 

and the resilience of the population can only be assessed in very broad terms and with 

considerable uncertainty. For many populations, there is a lack of understanding of the 

capacity for resilience, of natural fluctuations, and of the effect of other human impacts. 

Environmental impact assessment techniques have been proposed by Heubeck et al. 

(2003), IPIECA (2004) and many others. A recent review of major oil spills revealed that 

adequate data usually are collected (Heubeck 1997a, Anon. 1998), but that post-spill 

evaluations using that information are rather rare (Camphuysen et al. 2005). In fact, several 

scientists have played down the population level effects of oiling, simply because most 

9. The effect of 


on seabird populations 


51

52 

9. The effect of chronic 

oil pollution on 

seabird populations 


seabird populations have increased over the past 100 years. Severe population effects were 

anticipated (Bergman 1961, Goethe 1968, Bourne 1971, Baillie & Mead 1982), but were 

seldom proved (Dunnet 1982, Clark 1984, Dunnet 1987). Sometimes the effects were simply 

much smaller than expected, due to unforeseen factors such as unusual weather and the 

type of oil involved (Osborn 1996, Heubeck 1997a). On other occasions, local population 

effects were found, but these were not necessarily long-lasting (Phillips 1967, Penicaud 

1979, Piatt & Roseneau 1999, Peterson 2000). 

Many of the studies on localised spills and local impacts using long-term data were rather 

convincing, and were usually able to demonstrate immediate effects of oil pollution on 

breeding or wintering populations, no matter how small these effects were. On a larger 

scale, studies looking at the effects of spills affecting wintering seabirds far away from their 

breeding grounds have often been inconclusive, partly because inadequate data were used. 

Recent exceptions are the studies of Votier et al. (2005) and Wiese et al. 2004. 

They understood that the impact of oil pollution on seabird population parameters is poorly 

understood because oil spills usually occur in wintering areas remote from breeding 

colonies and where birds are distributed over a wide area. They also agreed that it is 

difficult to separate the effects of oil pollution from the effect of natural environmental 

variation on seabird populations. Votier et al. (2005), however, used a long-term data set that 

showed that winter survival of adult Common Guillemots was negatively affected by both the 

incidence of four major oil-spills in their wintering grounds, and high values of the North 

Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index. After controlling for the effect of the NAO index, they 

showed that winter mortality of adult guillemots was doubled by these major oil pollution 

incidents, demonstrating that oil pollution can have wide-scale impacts on marine 

ecosystems and that these impacts can be quantified using populations of marked individual 

seabirds to estimate survival rates.

10. 

Laws and Programs to 

reduce levels of oil 

pollution and minimising 

the effects of spills 


Marine oil pollution is one of the most widely recognised anthropogenic 

causes of seabird mortality. In this report, we have observed that large 

numbers of seabirds die annually as a result of chronic oil pollution, despite 

management action to reduce this form of marine contamination. Looking at 

studies around the world, Gandini et al. (1994) estimated that oil pollution killed 

40 – 60,000 penguins off the coast of Argentina. In a similar vein, Wiese (2002) 

calculated that 300,000 seabirds are killed annually off Newfoundland, and 

Camphuysen (1989) estimated that at least 30,000 seabirds are washed ashore 

in the Netherlands every year, and that even this amount represents but a 

fraction of total mortality caused by oil. In the same study, Camphuysen also 

reviewed the available data regarding current levels of oil-induced seabird 

mortality around the North Sea, and estimated that several hundred thousand 

birds were being killed every year. The Background Document of the 

Ecological Quality Objective concerning the proportion of oiled guillemots 

washed ashore (OSPAR Commission 2004) makes a number of suggestions to 

further reduce oil pollution. 

b. International legal framework to reduce 

(chronic) oil pollution 

Oil pollution from shipping has been one of the first and most extensively regulated 

environmental topics at international, regional and national levels. Preventing ship-source 

pollution has been one of the most debated issues during the Third UN Conference on the 

Law of the Sea (1973-1982), which resulted in the adoption of the UN Convention on the Law 

of the Sea (UNCLOS). The UNCLOS provisions on ship-source pollution are the most detailed 

of the entire Convention and are generally considered to be representative of customary 

international law, i.e., they bind all states regardless of their individual participation to the 

Convention (e.g., the USA included). Given the strong impact of ship-source pollution 

regulations on the traditional freedom of navigation and the need of uniformity in shippingrelated 

standards, UNCLOS poses some restrictions on the capacity of Coastal States to act 

unilaterally, especially beyond their territorial waters (i.e., 12 nautical miles). The Convention 

sets out the framework for the multilateral development of measures to prevent, reduce, and 

control ship-source pollution, acting primarily within the International Maritime Organization 

(IMO). The IMO was established in 1948 with the mandate "to encourage and facilitate the 

general adoption of the highest practicable standards in matters concerning maritime 

safety, efficiency of navigation and prevention and control of marine pollution from ships". 


53

54 

10. Laws and Programs 

to reduce levels of oil 

pollution and 

minimising the effects 

of spills 


As such, the IMO is considered to be “the competent” authority for the adoption of 

measures that may influence shipping. Nevertheless, under certain conditions, Coastal 

States may unilaterally impose restrictions on vessels plying their waters as a “condition of 

port entry” and they may take all necessary steps to prevent violation of these conditions 

(i.e., UNCLOS, Articles 211 (3) and 25(2)). Such restrictions would not apply to a vessel en 

route to a port not within the sovereignty of the Coastal State. Several Coastal States, the 

USA in particular, have exercised such a right. 

In 1973, in the aftermath of the Torrey Canyon accident, the IMO adopted the International 

Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (amended in 1978 and referred to as 

MARPOL 73/78) with the ambitious objectives to completely eliminate intentional pollution 

by oil and other hazardous substances and to minimize accidental discharges. Pollution by 

oil is regulated in Annex I, which contains three main sets of standards: 

1) Discharge standards that limits the maximum amount of oily waste which may be 

legally discharged into the marine environment as a function of waste type and 

geographic location; 

2) Onshore oily waste receptacles or ”Port Reception Facilities” (PRFs) for the 

collection of oil waste residues and oily waste mixtures; and 

3) Construction design, and equipment standards and operating procedures to 

prevent accidental oil spills and or to prevent oil pollution from oily waste 

discharges from vessels. Such standards and procedures include double hulls, 

segregated ballast tanks, oil-water separating equipment, overboard discharge 

monitors and, oil record book keeping, 

MARPOL Contracting Parties (IMO member states) implement these standards and 

issue an International Oil Pollution Prevention Certificate, attesting that ships flying their 

flags comply with the MARPOL requirements. Flag States must periodically conduct 

inspections to ensure continual compliance in particular when there are changes to 

either equipment or operations. A Port State 3 may conduct a Port State control 

inspections (“control verification examinations”) to verify the compliance of foreign ships 

with these requirements, and often national requirements that may apply. Port State 

inspections are often limited to an examination of current required certificates. However, 

if there are clear grounds for believing that the condition of the ship or its equipment does 

not correspond to what is attested in a certificate, and or there is evidence that there has 

been an illegal discharge the port authorities may detain the ship until the violation has 

been rectified; and many times issue a citation under domestic law (the implementing 

legislation of the MARPOL Convention), including in some countries criminal sanctions 

(e.g., the US and now, under certain circumstances, also EU member states). In turn, Port 

States, should furnish evidence of discharges to the Flag State for investigation and 

presumably remedial action. Many Coastal States 4 have individually (e.g., the UK) or 

regionally 5 implemented offshore surveillance programs using satellites imagery and /or 

planes with oil spill detection electronics and recording technology; and oil spill 

trajectory models and oil spill “fingerprinting.” 6 

3 In this context, a Port State is an IMO member state where a vessel makes a port call. 

4 In this context, a Coastal State is a state whose offshore waters are transited by a vessel registered in 

another country. 

5 E.g., in the Baltic sea area via the Helsinki Commission countries: Denmark, Estonia, the European 

Community, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Sweden 

6 Forensic bio/chemicalmarkers in oil used to identify the probable source of the pollution.

MARPOL 73/78 legally recognized that certain sea areas have particular oceanographic 

and ecological characteristics, as well as conditions of sea traffic, that make them 

particularly vulnerable to ship-source pollution and that therefore warrant a need for a 

higher level of protection. The Convention therefore introduced a special regime applicable 

to Special Areas (Box 3), wherein more stringent standards would apply to the discharge of 

substances regulated in the different Annexes. In Special Areas under Annex I all 

discharges of oil or oily mixtures are by and large prohibited to almost undetectable levels, 

except for minor and well-defined exceptions (safety of life emergencies). All ships 

operating in the Special Areas have to be fitted with special equipment (e.g., oil separation 

equipment or filters), and must retain oil residues that cannot be discharged into the sea or 

discharge these residues at designated port reception facilities. 

The latest development in the global network of Special Areas is the recent proposal for 

the coastline surrounding the Cape of Good Hope - one of the world's busiest shipping 

routes, with nearly 1,400 oil tankers and other vessels passing through each month. The 

proposal for a Southern African Waters Special Area was initiated by IFAW in cooperation 

with the South African Government in 2000, immediately after the MV Treasure oil spill 

incident, which caused the oiling of close to 20,000 African penguins Spheniscus demersus 

(35 % of the entire global population) as well as of hundreds of other vulnerable seabirds. 

The Southern African Waters Special Area proposal was adopted by IMO, and enters into 

force in February 2008. 

c. Other instruments for protecting sensitive marine regions 

Special Areas under MARPOL Annex I focus on the control of oil discharges from ships. 

Although discharge regulations are undeniably important, they are not the only standards 

available at the international level to prevent oil pollution. Several other international 

mechanisms to address oil pollution, both chronic and episodic (accidental) have been 

employed. A particularly effective manner to prevent pollution is to prohibit, restrict or 

regulate the passage of certain types of ships through sensitive sea areas. Routing 

measures were originally directed at ensuring safety of navigation in difficult areas, but over 

the years their scope has been extended to protection of the marine environment. 7 Under 

regulation V/10 of the 1974 Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), Coastal States 

may establish mandatory ship routing measures (e.g., sea lanes, no-anchor zones, etc.) 

within their territorial waters as a means of protecting environmentally sensitive areas. 

Outside territorial waters, these routing measures need to be approved by the IMO. Such 

measures may also include Areas to be Avoided (ATBAs) for certain categories of ships, 

(e.g., oil tankers) or vessels carrying particular types of cargo (e.g., heavy grades of oil). 

An example of this is the mandatory ATBA approved by the IMO in New Zealand’s Poor 

Knights Islands marine reserve. However, the establishment and enforcement of mandatory 

ATBAs, especially in areas beyond territorial waters, is still highly controversial. 

A tool now more frequently employed to identify areas of ecological significance and to 

foster adoption of mechanisms to protect these areas are IMO’s Guidelines on designating a 

"particularly sensitive sea area" (PSSA). 8 The designation of PSSAs is a process that 

identifies marine regions that “need special protection through action by IMO because of 

their significance for recognized ecological, socio-economic, or scientific attributes where 

such attributes may be vulnerable to damage by international shipping activities”. The IMO’s 

guidelines identify the criteria that an area has to fulfill to be designated as a PSSA, 

including: ecological criteria (e.g., unique or rare ecosystem, diversity of the ecosystem or 

vulnerability to degradation by natural events or human activities); social, cultural and 

economic criteria (e.g., significance of the area for recreation or tourism); and scientific and 

7 The IMO Publication Ships' Routing includes General Provisions on Ships' Routing, first adopted by IMO in 

1973, and subsequently amended over the years, describes legal traffic routing measures including, but not 

limited to Areas to be Avoided, Mandatory Ship Routes, Exclusion Zones and Precautionary Areas. 

8 Revised Guidelines for the Identification and Designation of Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas (PSSAs) (IMO 

Resolution A 982(24)). 





of spills 

Box 3 

Special Areas designated 

under MARPOL 73/78 Annex I 

(Regulation 10) 

• Mediterranean Sea Area 

• Baltic Sea Area 

• Black Sea Area 

• Red Sea Area 

• Gulfs Area 

• Gulf of Aden Area 

• Antarctic Area 

• North West European 

Waters Area 

• Oman Sea Area of the 

Arabian Seas 

(to be enforced from 1st 

January 2007). 

Underlined are those Special 

Areas in or bordering Europe. 


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56 





of spills 


educational criteria (e.g., biological research or historical value). The PSSA is not a legal 

recognized area -it is a tool to justify specific measures to reduce the impact of international 

shipping within that area. Therefore, of critical importance are the so-called Associated 

Protected Measures (APMs) that may be imposed within a designated PSSA to control the 

maritime activities. The IMO’s Guidelines assist IMO Member Governments in the 

formulation and submission of PSSA applications and the adoption of APMs. Like MARPOL 

Special Areas, PSSA (and APMs) may be located both within and beyond territorial waters, 

including the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and the high seas. APMs may go beyond 

merely imposing limits on discharges from ships, as in the MARPOL Special Areas, and can 

include any measures specifically tailored to the needs of a particular area that are judged 

necessary to prevent, reduce or eliminate vulnerability to shipping activities. APMs may 

consist of routing and reporting measures, strict application of MARPOL discharge and 

equipment requirements for ships, such as oil tankers; and installation of Vessel Traffic 

Services (VTS), operational or construction standards (e.g., double hulls), and any other 

measure within the competence of the IMO, providing these have a legal basis in an existing 

or a new IMO instrument, or in UNCLOS. Theoretically, APMs could also require ships to 

reduce noise pollution. Under certain circumstances, APMs may be more stringent than IMO 

standards, even in areas beyond territorial waters, if it is shown that these international 

standards are inadequate to protect the proposed PSSA. 

d. The EU context 

Erika I and II 

Recent developments in the European Union legislation related to the problem of oil pollution 

were brought about by spectacular tanker accidents, leading to oil spills and serious 

pollution of European coastlines. However most of this legislation addressed the problem of 

accidental discharges. Generally speaking, EU legislation is designed to implement IMO 

rules, including non-legally binding measures, in EU waters. 

In March 2000, a year after the accident of the Erika tanker, the European Commission 

proposed several Directives (the so-called Erika I package) aimed at improving maritime 

safety. The measures adopted provided for tighter control of ships in European ports 

(Directive 2001/106/EC) and more stringent requirements for classification societies 

(Directive 2001/105/EC). 

The Erika II package was put forward in December 2000. The European Maritime Safety 

Agency (EMSA) was created to provide Member States with advice concerning the 

application of European Community maritime safety legislation, and to monitor the 

implementation and assess the effectiveness of this legislation (Regulation No1406/2002). 

The new vessel traffic monitoring and information system (VTMIS) Directive (Directive 

2002/59/EC) aims at improving surveillance and exchange of information at sea. Among other 

things, it requires all ships entering EU ports to be equipped with voyage data recorders and 

identification systems, which automatically communicate with coastal authorities, according 

to the IMO requirements (SOLAS). 

In November 2003, the Prestige accident off the coast of Galicia propelled maritime safety 

back onto the agenda. Regulation (No1726/2003) was adopted speeding up the phasing out 

of single-hull tankers and banning the transport of heavy oil in single-hull tankers. A shipsource 

pollution Directive (2005/35/EC), adopted two years later, requires Member States to 

enforce penalties, including criminal sanctions, of sufficient severity to discourage violations 

of IMO anti-pollution standards (MARPOL).

Erika III 

In November 2005, in response to a call for action by the European Parliament, the 

Commission put forward a set of seven legislative proposals designed to further enhance 

maritime safety. Some of them constitute amendments to previous Directives, while some 

are new proposals. Key proposals include: 

A. a newly proposed Directive on Flag State Responsibilities that requires Member 

States to ensure that the ships flying their flags comply with the international 

standards contained in the IMO Conventions (mainly SOLAS and MARPOL). 

Member states are encouraged to participate in the IMO Audit Scheme, which 

provides independent assessment of how effectively the IMO technical treaties are 

implemented. The Directive encourages Member States to conclude agreements 

with other countries willing to use the same quality standards. Quality will be 

rewarded by imposing fewer controls in EU ports; 

B. amendments to the Port State Control Directive that further tighten the inspection 

regime on board of ships in EU ports. As most ships usually dock in several different 

countries, the European Commission hopes that improved coordination between 

Member States will make it possible to control 100 percent of ships calling at 

European ports (currently each Member State is obliged to control only 25 percent 

of the ships using its ports). The new system of control is based on a reward 

scheme, whereby clean ships undergo fewer controls than ships showing 

substandard levels of compliance with pollution-related regulations. However at this 

writing, the Port State Control Directive remains one of the most poorly implemented 

directives of the EC; 

C. amendments to the VTMIS Directive with the main objective to establish a clear 

legal framework for places of refuge (areas where ships in distress should be 

guided to). Among other things, the proposal requires Member States to appoint 

independent national authorities responsible for designating the most appropriate 

places of refuge and authorizing ships in distress to accede to these places. 

Further to the proposals discussed above, the Commission has also proposed the following: 

• An amendment to the Directive on classification societies that aims at improving the 

performance of these bodies; 

• A Directive on accident investigations that seeks to provide clear guidelines for technical 

investigations carried out after the occurrence of accidents at sea. This Proposal requires 

the Member States to ensure the existence of organizations adequately prepared to carry 

out such investigations, and to see that they perform their duties according to uniform 

procedures (e.g., the IMO Code for the Investigation of Marine Accidents); 

• A Regulation directed at tightening the rules concerning the liability of carriers and 

compensation for accident victims. The Proposal incorporates into EC law the IMO Athens 

Convention of 2002, which introduces compulsory insurance for carriers and increases the 

level of potential financial compensation for victims. The new rules are to apply to 

international traffic, as well as to domestic maritime traffic and inland waterways; 

• A Directive on the extra-contractual liability of ship owners, which urges the Member 

States to implement an international convention 9 that, maintaining the principle of limited 

liability, sets high levels of compensation from ship-owners. The Commission accordingly 

suggests that ship owners should possess an insurance policy. 

The Erika III proposals are currently under discussion in the Parliament and the Council 

and the legislative process is not expected to be due before the end of 2007. 

9 1996 Convention on the Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims. 





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of spills 


e. Limitations of existing regulatory instruments 

and regimes 

There are recognized problems with some oily water separators and related equipment 

(slop tanks 10 , piping and monitoring equipment) and operating requirements. Investigations 

by enforcement agencies of several Member states identified several practices by ship’s 

crew to circumvent or “fool” oily water separators and or monitoring devices. Ships’ crews 

have bypassed filters and separators using a “magic pipe” or portable hoses. There is a 

record of a ships engineer trying to trick the discharge monitoring device with a freshwater 

mixture. Oil record books are then falsified. The problem of deliberate/illegal oil discharges 

and so-called "mystery" spills, and the falsification of oil record books on vessels is a 

worldwide issue. The costs to the marine environment, in particular to seabirds, are 

significant. Likewise, costs to the recreation and tourism industries are considerable. 

The oil record book in its current form is not an effective deterrent. Currently MARPOL 

Annex I oil record bookkeeping requirements are ineffective, easily and demonstrably 

falsified. The requirements allow for a 15 th Century technology (pen and ink entries) in an era 

of secure, tamper-proof electronics technology that can and has been applied to monitor 

organizational and individual behavior both in-situ and remotely. Despite over 25 years of 

regulation under MARPOL Annex I, illegal oil discharges continue to severely plague marine 

resources of Coastal States. This outmoded standard unfairly shifts the responsibility from 

the ship-owner and Flag State to the Coastal State and or the Port State for monitoring and 

enforcement of discharge standards. 

Reasons cited for ships crew to circumvent the onboard pollution prevention equipment 

are many. A short list includes: Slop tanks are too small to wait for a port reception facility. 

Port reception facility costs are high. Oily water separations do not operate as designed; are 

poorly maintained; are of insufficient capacity; are time consuming to operate and ships 

crew are already overworked. Monitoring devices do not function as designed. 

Offshore surveillance by Coastal States within or outside MARPOL Special Areas is costly. 

Coastal surveillance by most governments is limited and rarely state of the art. Most 

surveillance relies solely on aerial "eyeball" searches. This limits surveillance to daylight, 

and good visibility and weather conditions. In addition, at best available flying time is limited 

due to overriding budget constraints typical of a developing country. For most countries, 

budget restrictions preclude use of infrared/ultra-violet detectors, advanced optics, and 

radar and microwave oil spill detection equipment. Costs for basic aerial systems, not 

including aircraft operations and maintenance and personnel are for example $US 1.6 million 

to purchase a commercially available maritime surveillance system. Satellite surveillance 

can cost $US 4,000 per photo and is for most member states unaffordable. However, this still 

leaves the Coastal State "footing" the bill to reduce illegal oil discharges. In the Baltic Sea 

Special Area, the Helcom countries do have a comprehensive surveillance program. 

Designation of Special Areas under MARPOL 73/78 has been demonstrated is an important 

step towards curbing ship-generated oil pollution. However, the cost has been great and 

illegal discharges persist. In the Mediterranean, the Special Area has not been adequately 

enforced and the number of illegal discharges is large (2001 JRC, “Monitoring of Illicit 

Vessels Discharges, a Reconnaissance Study in the Mediterranean Sea”). 

Several recent studies based on evidence from offshore surveillance by “coastal” states 

and from inspections by “Port States" reveal that nearly half of vessels inspected violate at 

least one aspect of the international environmental rules concerning the stowage and 

disposal of oil. Not all of these violations are evidence of willful misconduct, nor are they all 

serious, but they do underscore that compliance with international environmental rules is 

lacking. Experts have concluded that most ships and ship-owner/operators actively seek to 

10 Before oily waste is discharged from a vessel it is stored in a slop tank.

comply with this body of environmental regulations. Experts also concluded that one of the 

basic problems lies with a relatively small percentage of vessels and owners that persist in 

consistently operating their vessels in full contravention to the IMO's body of environmental 

regulations. In relative terms, the numbers are small – approximately 10-15% of the world 

fleet. According to the latest 2006 GESAMP Report n. 75 “Estimates of Oil Entering the 

Marine Environment from Sea-based Activities” (Para. 76), 86% of States parties to MARPOL 

comply with MARPOL requirements. However, in absolute terms, this subset of owners 

accounts for a large number of vessels. The world fleet is composed of nearly 88 000 vessels 

of which approximately 50 000 trade internationally. Given a compliance rate of 85% to 90%, 

that still leaves potentially 5 000 to 7 500 substandard commercial vessels polluting the seas 

through their noncompliance with international environmental regulations (OECD, Maritime 

Transport Committee Report 2003). 

The current systems of penalties imposed on offenders guilty of on-compliance with 

international oil pollution standards are not stringent enough and it is still more cost 

effective for shippers to disregard regulations concerning oil pollution, than to comply with 

them (OECD, Maritime Transport Committee Report 2003). The situation, however, is 

gradually changing with some countries (France, UK, Sweden, Canada, South Africa) 

starting vigorously persecuting. In the US, for instance, illegal discharges and the 

falsification of oil record books are are considered serious violations with companies being 

fined upwards of US$30 million and crew serving jail time by Coastal States. In the context of 

the in the recent passing of Bill C-15 in Canada (Amendments to the Migratory Birds 

Convention Act and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act), IFAW successfully lobbied 

the amendment of a minimum fine clause to Bill C-15. This amendment means that vessels of 

more than 5000 dwt will face a minimum fine of $500,000 CAD for the most serious deliberate 

dumping offences and a minimum fine of $100,000 CAD for the least serious offences. This is 

a huge step in the right direction considering that the highest fine previously ever enforced 

for this illegal practice in Canada was 170,000 CAD. 

At the 54th session of the IMO’s Marine Environmental Protection Committee (MEPC), held 

in March 2006, India drew the attention of the Committee to the serious operational 

problems most vessels were facing because, although being fitted with bilge oily water 

separators for machinery spaces in compliance with resolution MARPOL Annex I, many 

vessels had inadequate waste handling systems for machinery spaces, insufficient 

sludge/waste oil holding tanks and lesser incinerator capacity. In the view of India, recent 

reported incidents of MARPOL violations had demonstrated the inadequacy of guidelines for 

pollution-prevention equipment provided on board ships for waste oil management for 

machinery spaces. In the ensuing discussions such inadequacies were believed to foster a 

climate that encourages among other things willful illegal discharges and falsification of oil 

record books; further, the inadequacy of onboard equipment impacts crewing and is a 

human factors problem. Following these discussions, the Chairperson invited member 

governments and industry to provide concrete proposals, including draft MEPC circulars or 

proposed amendments to existing instruments, to a future session of the Committee in order 

to address this important matter. At the same meeting, following the report of the Technical 

Group on Special Areas and Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas (MEPC 54/WP.9), the 

Chairperson brought particular attention to the issue of illegal discharges within the 

proposed southern South African sea area as a Special Area. It is a common appeal that 

industry argues that any discharges are inadvertent as a consequence of equipment or 

operational problems. 

At the 2006 MEPC meetings (MEPC 54 and 55) these matter were discussed and several 

initiatives were proposed and initiated to address what may be the root causes of the 

sources of non-compliance including among other things, the poor design, operation and 

capacity of oily water separators and the lack of adequate shore side reception facilities. 





of spills 


59

60 

11. 


Conclusions 

• Chronic oil pollution can be described as a continuous stream of smaller and larger spills 

in the same area. These have highly variable effects in different areas and seasons, due to 

the varying nature of these areas and due to temporal patterns in the levels of exposure of 

the marine wildlife at risk. 

• Effects on organisms in contact with the sea surface (such as seabirds and marine 

mammals), and on inter-tidal ecosystems at the land-sea interface are probably larger 

than effects on, for example, pelagic (open water) and deeper sub-tidal benthic (sea 

bottom) systems. 

• Furness (1993) ranked oil pollution as one of the most significant threats to seabirds in the 

present and in the (near) future. This should justify continued efforts to minimise the oil 

problem, even if more serious hazards occur or are foreseen. 

• International conventions and associated national legislation have succeeded in lowering 

annual worldwide releases of oil from approximately 6 million tons in the early 1970s to 

about one million tons today. 

• However, with regard to wildlife casualties, the amount of oil spilled is less important than 

the season in which spillage occurs, and the location of that spillage. Relatively small 

spills (including discharges corresponding to chronic oil pollution) may lead to substantial 

damage and mortality. In this context, the key factors determining the gravity of wildlife 

casualties by oil are the densities of seabirds present in an affected area at any given 

time, and the vulnerability of the species present to oil pollution. 

• The evaluation contained in the present report clearly shows that information on a 

European scale is far from complete. Such a large gap in information prevents a reliable 

evaluation of the true impact of oil release in marine environments. 

• Sloan (1999) listed the following key remaining limitations in our understanding of the 

biology of oil pollution effects: 

• poor environmental baseline data for comparing the status of a situation 

prior to and after oiling; 

• the definition and quantification of exposure levels to oil hydrocarbons 

remains speculative; 

• few integrated population or ecosystem studies compared to single species 

studies; 

• inability to differentiate between natural changes in ecosystems and oil 

pollution effects; and 

• poor understanding of long-term, chronic sub-lethal impacts of oil pollution.

• The sensitivity of European waters with respect to oil pollution is well studied in some 

areas, but totally unknown in others. In particular, the waters of the Arctic, Mediterranean, 

Black Sea, and Macaronesia should be evaluated in order to increase the quality of 

information needed to curb the effects of oil spills in these areas. 

• Not all species in Europe have been subjected to Oil Vulnerability Indices (OVI) analysis, 

and it became clear that large areas in Europe are in fact data-deficient with respect to 

information regarding their sensitivity to oil pollution, in particular, the English Channel and 

coast of Portugal, both scenes of some of the most dramatic oil incidents that have taken 

place in recent years in terms of wildlife casualties. 

• Limited understanding or failures to demonstrate the effects of oil pollution on seabird 

populations have resulted in assumptions that the oil problem is not important. The fact 

that many thousands of seabirds perish annually as a result of chronic oil pollution is seen 

as irrelevant as long as population trends are positive. The oil problem has been played 

down simply because there are other more visible threats to seabirds (see Appendix IV), 

and as a result oil pollution is not given priority and does not always get the attention it 

deserves. 

• Annual loss of wildlife due to chronic oiling is still very large, even in so-called Special 

Areas (MARPOL Annex I). 

• From the recently established EC website and JRC database, it is clear that even in 

Special Areas control measures have been inadequate to fully reduce and eliminate 

(illegal) oil spills. Aerial surveys and satellite observations of oil slicks showed that in the 

Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, thousands of oil slicks 

occur every single year. 

• A significant proportion of chronic oil pollution is a result of deliberate discharges of oil or 

leakages of badly maintained installations. 

• Beached-bird surveys conducted around Europe within the past six years report many 

thousands of oiled seabirds each winter, and these results represent only a fraction of the 

total number of casualties. 

• Recent studies showed that oil pollution can have large-scale effects on marine wildlife 

and that these impacts can be quantified using tagged individual seabirds to estimate 

survival of seabird populations. 

• Beached-bird surveys produce species-specific oil rates and these have declined 

consistently in most areas and for most species. Aerial surveys detecting oil slicks at sea 

have produced data that are consistent with the results of beached bird surveys: high oil 

rates typically occur in areas with dense shipping (i.e., where chronic oil pollution is an 

issue). This is not to say that a high density of maritime shipping automatically causes 

large numbers of seabirds to become oiled: in accordance with the conclusion made 

earlier, it is not so much the amount of oil that makes a difference but rather the fact that 

frequent releases of oil into the marine environment do cause damage in sensitive areas 

and at particular times of the year. 

• The ecological parameters used for designating MARPOL 73/78 Annex I Special Areas are 

limited and do not reflect spatial patterns in sensitivity to oil pollution according to current 

data on the distribution of seabirds at sea. Because of this, highly vulnerable arctic and 

sub-arctic regions and waters along the Atlantic seaboard between Gibraltar and the 

English Channel have not been included as Special Areas. 

11. Conclusions 


61

62 

11. Conclusions 


• The Mediterranean and Black seas are “data-deficient” according to the preliminary 

sensitivity analysis presented in this report, but the history of oil incidents and associated 

wildlife casualties in Europe does not suggest that highly sensitive areas for marine 

seabirds have been overlooked, or it may be that we have been lucky that oil spills have 

not hit those areas. 

• The material in this report clearly shows that Special Areas and sensitive areas are not 

necessarily the same. 

• Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas (PSSAs) represent a significant improvement on the 

MARPOL Special Areas concept in that they employ selection criteria based on marine 

conservation needs as identified by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). However, 

PSSAs tend to be restricted to coastal waters and thus similarly overlook broader patterns 

of marine wildlife sensitivity to oil as indicated by seabird distribution data. 

• Existing legislation designed to reduce chronic oil pollution is not fully implemented, 

enforced and may be inadequate. 

• Existing penalties are not stringent enough to discourage violations. 

• Irresponsible behaviour is often triggered by economic factors. Measures should be 

implemented to ensure that failing to play by the rules becomes just too expensive. To put 

it simply, if the cost of disposing excess oil into the sea is higher than the cost of keeping it 

on board until it can be discharged to a port reception facility, then illegal disposal stops 

being an attractive alternative. This is an obvious course of action foreseen by MARPOL 

within the legal instruments needed to change legislation, yet thousands of oil spills occur 

every year within Special Areas (see chapter on chronic oil pollution in Europe). 

• Accidents at sea cannot be completely avoided, regardless of how good efforts are to 

improve shipping standards and safety procedures. Accidents do happen and it is 

necessary to improve existing response systems in order to increase the efficiency and 

speediness of the decision-making in emergency situations. 

• Spatial patterns and seasonal trends in vulnerable concentrations of seabirds in the North 

Sea and west of Britain have been identified and published (Bourne 1982, Tasker & 

Pienkowski 1987, Tasker et al. 1990, Tasker 1991, Webb et al. 1995, see also chapter herein, 

entitled “Sensitive species, sensitive areas”). However, despite this knowledge the OSPAR 

Commission (2004) concluded that there is little evidence that this information is being 

used to improve the planning of clean-up operations in the wake of oil incidents (e.g., 

Tricolor incident). The Commission similarly found that the available knowledge appears to 

play very little part in orienting the decision to immediately contain illegal spills at sea or 

leave them to disperse naturally (and more slowly), or indeed in planning aerial 

surveillances for oil at sea.

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73

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Appendix I 

Oil vulnerability index scores of King & Sanger (1979), Camphuysen (1989) and Williams et al. 

(1994) for species common to the northeast Pacific and the North Sea respectively. 

The percentage of oiled birds out of all corpses reported dead or moribund on Netherlands’ 

beaches is also shown (Camphuysen 1989). 

Species King & Sanger Camphuysen Williams et al. 

(1979) (1989) (1994) 

OVI OVI Oil% OVI 

Red-throated Diver 49 68 92.1 29 

Black-throated Diver 58 65 93.2 29 

Great Northern Diver 47 67 - 29 

Great Crested Grebe - 58 58.2 23 

Red-necked Grebe 44 54 67.4 26 

Slavonian Grebe 48 46 71.1 - 

Northern Fulmar 57 65 68.0 18 

Manx Shearwater - 54 - 23 

Sooty Shearwater 51 47 - 19 

European Storm-petrel - 54 - 18 

Leach’s Storm-petrel 63 49 - - 

Northern Gannet - 65 86.5 22 

Great Cormorant - 59 36.2 20 

European Shag - 73 - 24 

Brent Goose 70 42 21.8 - 

Mallard 36 29 31.9 - 

Pintail 36 27 25.9 - 

Shoveler 34 30 - - 

Greater Scaup 52 58 37.7 20 

Long-tailed Duck 66 55 88.9 17 

Common Eider 68 75 67.3 16 

Common Scoter 72 66 95.8 19 

Velvet Scoter - 65 76.5 21 

Common Goldeneye 48 50 35.3 16 

Red-breasted Merganser 56 58 43.0 21 

Goosander 56 45 42.5 - 

Red-necked Phalarope 62 37 - - 

Grey Phalarope 58 39 - - 

Pomarine Skua 41 40 51.4 - 

Arctic Skua 43 43 70.0 24 

Great Skua 58 70.6 25 

Long-tailed Skua 39 36 - - 

Little Gull - 58 56.9 24 

Sabine’s Gull 44 41 - - 

Black-headed Gull - 44 44.2 11 

Common Gull 36 46 59.6 13 

Lesser black-backed Gull - 50 40.3 19 

Herring Gull 38 47 32.9 15 

Glaucous Gull 45 36 - - 

Great black-backed Gull - 57 46.5 21 

Black-legged Kittiwake 49 66 84.0 17 

Sandwich Tern 51 36.4 20 

Common Tern 46 26.2 20 

Arctic Tern 32 46 - 16 

Little Tern - 49 19 

Common Guillemot 70 82 89.0 22 

Razorbill - 86 89.3 24 

Black Guillemot 70 72 - 29 

Little Auk 65 84.6 22 

Atlantic Puffin 80 85.0 21

Appendix II 

Overall breeding (B) and wintering (W) distribution of European seabirds; their status as 

passage migrants (P) in Arctic waters, in the temperate zone of NW Europe, within the 

Mediterranean, the Black Sea and Macaronesia; and their OVI scores as indicated by 

Camphuysen (1989) 1 and Williams et al. (1994) 2. 

English name Genus Species Sub-species Arctic Temperate Meditn. Black Sea Macar. OVI 1 OVI 2 

Red-throated Diver Gavia stellata B B W W W 68 29 

Black-throated Diver Gavia arctica arctica B W W W 65 29 

Great Northern Diver Gavia immer B B W 67 29 

White-billed Diver Gavia adamsii B W W 

Little Grebe Tachybaptus ruficollis ruficollis B W B W B W 

Red-necked Grebe Podiceps grisegena grisegena B W W B W 54 26 

Great Crested Grebe Podiceps cristatus cristatus B W B W B W 58 23 

Slavonian Grebe Podiceps auritus auritus B W W W 46 

Black-necked Grebe Podiceps nigricollis nigricollis B W W B W 

Northern Fulmar Fulmarus glacialis glacialis B W 65 18 

Northern Fulmar Fulmarus glacialis auduboni B W 

Fea's Petrel Pterodroma feae B 

Zino's Petrel Pterodroma madeira B 

Bulwer's Petrel Bulweria bulwerii B 

Scopoli's Shearwater Calonectris diomedea B W 

Cory's Shearwater Calonectris borealis B B 

Cape Verde Shearwater Calonectris edwardsii B 

Great Shearwater Puffinus gravis P P 

Sooty Shearwater Puffinus griseus P P 47 19 

Manx Shearwater Puffinus puffinus B B W 54 23 

Yelkouan Shearwater Puffinus yelkouan B W W 

Balearic Shearwater Puffinus mauretanicus W B W W 

Little Shearwater Puffinus assimilis baroli B 

Cp. Verde Little Shearwater Puffinus boydi B 

Wilson's Storm-petrel Oceanites oceanicus oceanicus W 

White-faced Storm-petrel Pelagodroma marina hypoleuca B 

White-faced Storm-petrel Pelagodroma marina eadesi B 

European Storm-petrel Hydrobates pelagicus B B B W 54 18 

Band-rumped Storm-petrel Oceanodroma castro B B W 

Swinhoe's Storm-petrel Oceanodroma monorhis rare rare 

Leach's Storm-petrel Oceanodroma leucorhoa leucorhoa B W 49 

Red-billed Tropicbird Phaethon aethereus mesonauta B 

Eastern White Pelican Pelecanus onocrotalus B W B W B W 

Dalmatian Pelican Pelecanus crispus B W B W 

Northern Gannet Morus bassanus P B W W W 65 22 

Brown Booby Sula leucogaster leucogaster B W 

North Atlantic Cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo carbo B B W W 

Eurasian Cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis B W B W B W 59 20 

Cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo maroccanus B W B W 

West-African Cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo lucidus B W 

European Shag Stictocarbo aristotelis aristotelis B W 73 24 

Mediterranean Shag Stictocarbo aristotelis desmarestii B W B W 

Moroccan Shag Stictocarbo aristotelis riggenbachi B W 


75

76 

Appendix II 


Long-tailed Cormorant Microcarbo africanus africanus rare 

Pygmy Cormorant Microcarbo pygmeus B W 

Darter Anhinga melanogaster rufa B 

Magnificent Frigatebird Fregata magnificens B 

European Pochard Aythya ferina B W B W B W 

Ferruginous Duck Aythya nyroca B W B W B W 

Tufted Duck Aythya fuligula B W W W 

Greater Scaup Aythya marila marila B W W W 58 20 

Common Eider Somateria mollissima mollissima B W rare rare 75 16 

Common Eider Somateria mollissima faeroeensis B W 

Common Eider Somateria mollissima borealis B W W 

Steller's Eider Polysticta stelleri B W W 

King Eider Somateria spectabilis B W W 

Harlequin Duck Histrionicus histrionicus B B W 

Long-tailed Duck Clangula hyemalis B B W 55 17 

Common Scoter Melanitta nigra B W W W 66 19 

Velvet Scoter Melanitta fusca fusca B W W W 65 21 

Barrow's Goldeneye Bucephala islandica B W 

Common Goldeneye Bucephala clangula clangula B W W W 50 16 

Smew Mergellus albellus B W W W 

Red-breasted Merganser Mergus serrator B W W B W 58 21 

Goosander Mergus merganser merganser B W W W 45 0 

Red-necked Phalarope Phalaropus lobatus B B P 37 0 

Grey Phalarope Phalaropus fulicaria B P W 39 0 

Great Skua Stercorarius skua B BW W W 58 25 

Pomarine Skua Stercorarius pomarinus B P P P W 40 0 

Arctic Skua Stercorarius parasiticus B BP P P W 43 24 

Long-tailed Skua Stercorarius longicaudus longicaudus B P W 36 0 

Long-tailed Skua Stercorarius longicaudus pallescens B P W 

Common Gull Larus canus canus B W W 46 13 

Eastern Common Gull Larus canus heinei W W 

Audouin's Gull Larus audouinii B W W 

Great Black-backed Gull Larus marinus B W B W 57 21 

Kelp Gull Larus dominicanus rare 

Glaucous Gull Larus hyperboreus hyperboreus B W B W 36 

Glaucous Gull Larus hyperboreus leuceretes B W B W 

Herring Gull Larus argentatus B W 47 15 

Atlantic Yellow-legged Gull Larus michahellis atlantis B W 

Medit. Yellow-legged Gull Larus michahellis michahellis B W B W W 

Pontic Gull or Caspian Gull Larus cachinnans W B W 

Armenian Gull Larus armenicus W 

Lesser Black-backed Gull Larus graellsii B W W W W 50 19 

Chronic Oil Pollution in Europe

Appendix II 


Baltic Gull Larus fuscus fuscus B P P 

Great Black-headed Gull Larus ichthyaetus P B W 

African Grey-headed Gull Larus cirrocephalus poiocephalus B W 

Black-headed Gull Larus ridibundus B W B W B W W 44 11 

Slender-billed Gull Larus genei B B W 

Mediterranean Gull Larus melanocephalus B W B W B W W 

Little Gull Larus minutus B P W W B W W 58 24 

Ivory Gull Pagophila eburnea B W 

Sabine's Gull Larus sabini palaearctica B P P 41 

Sabine's Gull Larus sabini sabini P P 

Black-legged Kittiwake Rissa tridactyla tridactyla B W B W W W 66 17 

Gull-billed Tern Gelochelidon nilotica nilotica B P B P B W B W 

Caspian Tern Sterna caspia B B W B W B W 

Lesser Crested Tern Sterna bengalensis emigrata B W W 

Sandwich Tern Sterna sandvicensis sandvicensis B W B W B W W 51 20 

Mauritanian Royal Tern Sterna maxima albididorsalis B W 

Roseate Tern Sterna dougallii dougallii B B W 

Common Tern Sterna hirundo hirundo B B W B W B W 46 20 

Arctic Tern Sterna paradisaea B B P P P W 46 16 

Little Tern Sterna albifrons albifrons B B P B W 49 19 

Bridled Tern Sterna anaethetus melanoptera B W 

Sooty Tern Sterna fuscata fuscata B W 

Whiskered Tern Chlidonias hybridus hybridus B B P 

White-winged Black Tern Chlidonias leucopterus B B P P 

Black Tern Chlidonias niger niger B B P P 

African Skimmer Rynchops flavirostris B W 

Little Auk Alle alle alle B W W 65 22 

Little Auk Alle alle polaris B W 

Guillemot Uria aalge aalge B W 82 22 

Guillemot Uria aalge albionis B W 

Guillemot Uria aalge hyperborea B B W 

Brünnich's Guillemot Uria lomvia lomvia B B W 

Razorbill Alca torda torda B B W 86 24 

Razorbill Alca torda islandica B W W 

Black Guillemot Cepphus grylle mandtii B W 72 29 

Black Guillemot Cepphus grylle arcticus B W 

Black Guillemot Cepphus grylle islandicus B W 

Black Guillemot Cepphus grylle faeroeensis B W 

Black Guillemot Cepphus grylle grylle B W 

Atlantic Puffin Fratercula arctica naumanni B 

Atlantic Puffin Fratercula arctica arctica B B W 

Atlantic Puffin Fratercula arctica grabae B W W 80 21 


77

78 


Appendix III 

Assessment of anticipated sensitivity of European sea areas to 


Greenland Sea and Icelandic waters - data-deficient 

• Seabirds in the area: internationally important breeding populations of divers (inland), auks, 

gannets and seaduck, some breeding cormorants. Wintering auks (pelagic and coastal) and 

cormorants (coastal). 

• Systematic studies of seabirds at sea: anecdotal information and local surveys (e.g., Meltofte 1972; 

Camphuysen 1993; Petersen et al. 1994); no overview data at hand on seabird distribution at sea that is 

published or within any substantial database. 

• OVI evaluation and area sensitivity: analysis never undertaken. 

• Anticipated sensitivity to chronic oil pollution: very high, certainly in summer; no concrete 

information on migratory routes and winter staging areas available. 

Svalbard - partly covered, incomplete data. 

• Seabirds in the area: internationally important breeding populations of divers (inland), auks, and 

seaduck. Wintering seabirds? 

• Systematic studies of seabirds at sea: survey data biased to Barents Sea and southwestern 

approaches, exclusively in summer (e.g., Mehlum 1989, Fauchald & Erikstad 1995, Isaksen 1995, 

Mehlum & Isaksen 1995); also anecdotal information (Voisin 1970, Byrkjedal et al. 1976, Camphuysen 

1993, Joiris 1996). 

• OVI evaluation and area sensitivity: analysis not specifically undertaken, available data would make 

analysis possible, but probably with gaps of knowledge. 

• Anticipated sensitivity to chronic oil pollution: very high, at least in summer. 

Barents Sea - partly covered, incomplete data. 

• Seabirds in the area: internationally important breeding populations of divers (inland), auks, and 

seaduck, breeding cormorants and gannets. Wintering auks (pelagic and coastal) and cormorants 

(coastal). 

• Systematic studies of seabirds at sea: recent summer survey data, including some of the Russian 

parts of the area (Borkin et al. 1992, Bakken 1990, Isaksen & Bakken 1995, Mehlum et al. 1998, 

Fauchald et al. 2005). Some winter and spring information (Hunt et al. 1996). 

• OVI evaluation and area sensitivity: analysis not specifically undertaken, but could be carried out from 

recent survey data (Fauchald et al. 2005). Quarterly overview data from Fauchald needs to be broken 

down for a regional and fine-scale temporal assessment. 

• Anticipated sensitivity to chronic oil pollution: very high, in summer and winter. 

Norwegian Sea - partly covered, incomplete data. 

• Seabirds in the area: internationally important breeding populations of divers (inland), auks, 

cormorants and seaduck, some breeding gannets. Wintering auks (pelagic and coastal), seaduck, 

divers and cormorants (all coastal). 

• Systematic studies of seabirds at sea: recent summer survey data, but small and fragmented data 

sets for pelagic seabirds only (Fauchald et al. 2005). Comprehensive data for wintering, nearshore 

waterfowl (Frantzen 1985, Nygård et al. 1988, Bergstrøm 1990, Anker-Nilssen et al. 1996). 

• OVI evaluation and area sensitivity: analysis not specifically undertaken; could be carried out from 

recent survey data, but is likely to contain gaps due to fragmented datasets. 

• Anticipated sensitivity to chronic oil pollution: very high throughout the year, at least regionally.

Faeroese waters - recently well covered, vulnerability atlas available. 

• Seabirds in the area: internationally important breeding populations of auks, some breeding 

cormorants, seaduck, divers and gannets. Wintering auks (pelagic and coastal), seaduck and 

cormorants (all coastal). 

• Systematic studies of seabirds at sea: extensive seabird surveys in recent years completed and 

reported; winter data set relatively small and fragmented (Danielsen et al. 1990, Taylor & Reid 2001, 

Skov et al. 2002). 

• OVI evaluation and area sensitivity: vulnerability atlases produced, using species-specific OVI 

analysis and monthly seabird abundance data (Skov et al. 2002). 

• Anticipated sensitivity to chronic oil pollution: locally very high; clearly identified seasonal and 

spatial patterns in sensitivity (Skov et al. 2002). 

North Sea - recently well covered, vulnerability atlas available. 

• Seabirds in the area: internationally important breeding populations of auks, gannets, and cormorants. 

Small numbers of inland breeding seaduck and divers. Internationally important pathway for numerous 

species of migratory seabirds. Internationally important wintering areas of auks, divers, seaduck, and 

some wintering Gannets. 


reported; winter data set relatively small and fragmented. Published material and data sets include 

area overviews (Blake et al. 1984, Tasker et al. 1987, Stone et al. 1995) as well as regional studies 

(Camphuysen & Leopold 1994, Garthe et al. 1995, Offringa et al. 1995, Mitschke et al. 2001, Diederichs 

et al. 2002, Garthe 2003ab, Garthe et al. 2004). Monitoring is ongoing at national level and as a joint 

international research project (European Seabirds at Sea database; Reid & Camphuysen 1998). 

• OVI evaluation and area sensitivity: vulnerability atlases produced, using species-specific OVI 

analysis and monthly seabird abundance data (Tasker & Pienkowski 1987, Skov et al. 1995, Carter et al. 

1993). Marine Important Bird Area (IBA) atlases have been produced (Skov et al. 1995, Maes et al. 

2000, Seys et al. 2001). 


spatial patterns in sensitivity (Tasker & Pienkowski 1987, Skov et al. 1995, Carter et al. 1993). 

• Special work: Sensitivity maps covering all biota have been developed for German North Sea coasts 

after a feasibility study was carried out during 1983-87. The maps have been updated for the German 

North Sea coast and Baltic coastal areas. As part of the German Contingency Planning for Marine 

Pollution Control, these maps will be extended to cover German offshore areas in the (near) future 

(van Bernem et al. 1994). 

Baltic - recently well covered, requires vulnerability assessment. 

• Seabirds in the area: internationally important breeding populations of divers (inland), and seaduck, 

breeding cormorants and auks. Internationally important wintering concentrations of auks (Skagerrak/ 

Kattegat) and seaduck (pelagic and inshore), internationally important stopover sites for divers. 


reported (Durinck et al. 1993, Pihl et al. 1995, Garthe 2003ab, Garthe et al. 2003, Sonntag et al. 2004); 

winter waterfowl counts in coastal areas and during aerial surveys in most of the area (e.g., 

Raudonikis 1989ab, Shergalin 1990, Nilsson 2005). 

• OVI evaluation and area sensitivity: analysis not specifically undertaken, but could be carried out from 

(recent) survey data. Marine IBA atlases have been produced (Durinck et al. 1994, Skov et al. 2000). 

• Anticipated sensitivity to chronic oil pollution: very high in winter, when offshore seaduck (a species 

that breeds widely and is dispersed in very low densities) is widespread rather than concentrated, as 

in most other European areas; locally high in summer. 

Appendix III 


79

80 

Appendix III 


West of Britain, Ireland and Irish Sea - recently well covered, vulnerability 

atlas available. 

• Seabirds in the area: internationally important breeding populations of auks, cormorants and gannets. 

Some breeding seaduck. Internationally important pathway for numerous species of migratory 

seabirds. Wintering auks (pelagic and coastal), divers, seaduck, cormorants (all coastal) and some 

gannets (pelagic). 

• Systematic studies of seabirds at sea: extensive studies of seabirds at sea (Webb et al. 1995a, Pollock 

et al. 1997), continued in recent years (Mackey et al. 2004); information on wintering coastal seabird 

and waterfowl concentrations (Lack 1986). 

• OVI evaluation and area sensitivity: vulnerability atlas produced, using species-specific OVI analysis 

and monthly seabird abundance data (Webb et al. 1995b). 


spatial patterns in sensitivity (Webb et al. 1995b). 

Channel and Celtic Sea - at least locally data-deficient. UK waters recently well 

covered, vulnerability atlas available. 

• Seabirds in the area: internationally important breeding populations of cormorants and gannets. 

Some breeding auks. Internationally important pathway for numerous species of migratory seabirds. 

Internationally important wintering area for auks (pelagic and coastal), divers, cormorants (coastal) 

and some gannets and seaduck. 

• Systematic studies of seabirds at sea: extensive studies of seabirds at sea (White & Webb 1995, 

Webb et al. 1995a), much less comprehensive data on seabird numbers at sea in French waters (some 

anecdotal data: Creswell & Walker 2001, Mustoe 2001, Walker et al. 2004). 

• OVI evaluation and area sensitivity: vulnerability atlas produced, using species-specific OVI analysis 

and monthly seabird abundance data (Webb et al. 1995b). 


spatial patterns in sensitivity published for UK waters (Webb et al. 1995b); very high, at least in winter, 

in French waters; localised around major breeding colonies in summer. 

Bay of Biscay - data-deficient. 

• Seabirds in the area: breeding cormorants. Internationally important wintering areas for auks (pelagic 

and coastal), gannets, and maybe cormorants. Internationally important pathway for numerous 

species of migratory seabirds. Wintering divers and locally certain seaduck (all coastal). 

• Systematic studies of seabirds at sea: non-integrated ship-based and aerial surveys in recent years, 

partly in response to the Erika oil spill, methodology different for each project (Bretagnolle et al. 2004, 

Castège et al. 2004, Valeiras et al. 2005, ESAS unpublished data); some additional anecdotal data: 

Creswell & Walker (2001, Mustoe (2001), Walker et al. (2004). 

• OVI evaluation and area sensitivity: In the Bay of Biscay, an OVI evaluation has been made only for a 

small well studied area in the southeast of Brittany (47°34' - 46°40' N / 3°18' - 1°57' W; Recorbet 1998, 

2001). Otherwise, an analysis has never been undertaken; difficult at present with available material 

and certainly with major gaps in knowledge. 

• Anticipated sensitivity to chronic oil pollution: at least locally very high in winter, as demonstrated by 

recent major oil spills; unknown in summer.

Portuguese and Spanish Atlantic coasts - data-deficient. 

• Seabirds in the area: breeding auks, and cormorants. Internationally important pathway for numerous 

species of migratory seabirds. Wintering auks (pelagic and coastal), gannets, divers, seaduck and 

cormorants (coastal) in insufficiently known numbers. 

• Systematic studies of seabirds at sea: seaduck monitoring, including aerial surveys, in coastal waters 

(Rufino & Neves 1990); recent studies of the offshore distribution of seabirds currently under way (SEO 

and SPEA, data loggers, aerial surveys and ship-based surveys; no results published yet). 


• Anticipated sensitivity to chronic oil pollution: at least locally very high in winter, as demonstrated by 

recent major oil spills; unknown in summer, but probably lower. 

The Azores, Canaries, Cape Verde Islands (Macaronesia) - data-deficient. 

• Seabirds in the area: no breeding species of the highest sensitivity, wintering seabirds such as auks 

and gannets relatively dispersed and therefore not immediately at risk. 

• Systematic studies of seabirds at sea: Recent studies of the offshore distribution of seabirds currently 

under way (SEO and SPEA, data loggers, aerial surveys and ship-based surveys; no results published 

yet); anecdotal information within published papers and grey literature. 


• Anticipated sensitivity to chronic oil pollution: several rarer species of seabirds in lower vulnerability 

categories in the area; offshore distribution patterns not clear. 

Western Mediterranean - data-deficient. 

• Seabirds in the area: breeding cormorants, important numbers of wintering auks, cormorants, 

gannets; precise numbers and distribution patterns unknown. 

• Systematic studies of seabirds at sea: Recent studies of the offshore distribution of seabirds currently 

under way (SEO, data loggers, aerial surveys and ship-based surveys; no results published yet); some 

distributional data from observations at offshore stations and from ecological seabird studies (Arcos & 

Oro 1996, Abelló & Oro 1998). 



categories in the area; offshore distribution patterns not clear. 

Eastern Mediterranean - data-deficient. 

• Seabirds in the area: breeding and wintering cormorants, wintering divers; precise numbers and 

distribution patterns unknown. 

• Systematic studies of seabirds at sea: not known. 

• OVI evaluation and area sensitivity: analysis never undertaken and no material on area sensitivity 

at hand. 


categories in the area; offshore distribution patterns unclear. 

Black Sea - data-deficient. 

• Seabirds in the area: breeding and wintering cormorants, wintering divers and seaduck; precise 

numbers and distribution patterns unknown. 

• Systematic studies of seabirds at sea: not known 

• OVI evaluation and area sensitivity: analysis never undertaken and no material on area sensitivity 

available. 

• Anticipated sensitivity to chronic oil pollution: wintering concentrations of divers and seaduck may 

lead to locally/temporally high vulnerability. 

Appendix III 


81

82 


Appendix IV 

Chronic oil pollution versus other threats to marine wildlife 


Few people will deny that (mineral) oil pollution has adverse effects on seabird populations, even 

although effects may be difficult to demonstrate for the reasons discussed earlier. At the same time, 

seabird biologists tend to rank oil pollution as a lesser threat than several other anthropogenic 

pressures on seabirds, such as fisheries, chemical pollution and climate change, the impacts of which 

are more sustained or more prevalent on adults. 

b. Direct exploitation 

Seabirds have long been exploited, throughout the world. Eggs, chicks and adult birds have been taken 

in quantities beyond imagination (Steel 1975, Croxall et al. 1984, Mearns & Mearns 1998). The relaxation 

of direct exploitation in most of Europe has been seen as a key factor allowing the recent recovery of 

seabird populations. The effect of increased human predation, for example during food shortages as in 

World War II, on a species like the Sandwich Tern Sterna sandvicensis in the Netherlands, is a clear 

example of the huge impact of direct exploitation on seabirds (Stienen 2006). This form of depletion is 

now a local or regional phenomenon rather than a worldwide problem. 

Other ways in which human activities pressure seabirds 

• Human consumption of adult seabirds 

(direct exploitation) 

• Bird collectors 

• Introduced alien mammalian predators in 

seabird colonies 

• By-catch in fisheries 

c. Bird collectors 

The Great Auk Pinguinus impennis is an example of a species that has been brought to extinction by 

bird collectors, even although its initial decline may have been caused by excessive, unsustainable 

exploitation (Bourne 1993, Birkhead 1994). In recent years, bird collecting has ceased to be a very 

serious problem, except perhaps for raptors, parrots or other tropical birds. 

d. Introduced (alien) mammalian predators 

Seabirds breed on islands and cliffs to minimise risks of predation. Mammalian predators introduced on 

islands have been a major threat to seabirds all over the world. Introductions of this kind have included 

a variety of species such as cats, rats, pigs, goats, hedgehogs and martens. These predators take not 

just eggs and chicks, but also attack adult birds. As a result, alien predators have wiped out entire 

populations of seabirds (Croxall et al. 1984). Human intervention to remove predators on some islands 

has led to spectacular recoveries (Bailey 1995, Zonfrillo 1997, Bell & Bell 1998, Bell 2004, Anon. 2005), 

and this conservation measure is today still a top priority in campaigns to protect or restore seabird 

populations around the world. 

e. By-catch in fisheries 

• Ghost net drowning 

• Food depletion through overfishing, 

competition with fisheries 

• Destruction and disturbance of habitat 

• Shooting and hunting 

• Chemical pollution 

The mortality of albatrosses and petrels caused by longline fishery (de la Mare & Kerry 1994, Brothers & 

Foster 1997, Croxall et al. 1998, Ludwig et al. 1998, Neves & Olmos 1998, Steel et al. 2000, Jahncke et al. 

2001) and by-catch in driftnets and other fishing gear (Kies & Tomek 1990, Piatt & Gould 1994, Artyukhin 

& Burkanov 2000) is well known and a major reason for concern. Most albatross species are declining, 

largely as a result of the excessive mortality caused by fisheries. Attempts to stop or at least minimise 

by-catch of seabirds as a result of both longlining and nets remains a top priority in campaigns to 

protect seabirds around the world. In Europe, by-catch of Northern Fulmars by longlining is an issue 

mainly in the Nordic seas (Steel et al. 2000), whereas by-catch in fishing nets is problematic mostly in 

the Baltic, the North Sea, the Wadden Sea, the Atlantic seaboard, and probably also in the Black Sea 

and the Mediterranean.

f. Ghost nets 

Nets that become lost at sea do not stop working, and the effects of this so-called “ghost-net fishing” 

as a cause of seabird mortality can only be guessed at (DeGange & Newby 1980, Camphuysen 2000). 

The scale of the problem is unclear, but beached bird surveys in the southern North Sea for example 

revealed that about 5% of the Northern Gannets Morus bassanus washing ashore had died in nets, 

often in ghost nets (Camphuysen 1990a, 1994). Species like Northern Gannets, but also Black-legged 

Kittiwakes, increasingly use netting material picked up at sea to construct their nests, and the ensuing 

entanglements in breeding colonies cause death of both adults and chicks (Camphuysen 1990b, 

Montevecchi 1991, Schneider 2002). 

g. Food depletion through over-fishing, competition with fisheries 

Over-exploitation and subsequent collapse of marine fish populations has often been listed as a major 

threat to seabirds. The global marine fish yield is dangerously close to exceeding its upper limit. 

The number of over-fished populations, as well as the indirect effects of fisheries on marine 

ecosystems, indicate that management of fisheries has failed to achieve the principal objective of 

assuring sustainability (Botsford et al. 1997). Although direct effects of over-fishing on seabirds have 

seldom been demonstrated, there are several studies that indicate the particular sensitivity of specialist 

seabird species to the threat of food depletion (Blake 1983, Birkhead & Furness 1985, Furness 1999, 

Camphuysen et al. 2002). 

h. Destruction and disturbance of habitat 

Habitat loss has been highlighted as a major threat to several burrow-nesting species of seabirds 

(Zino et al. 1994ab, Croxall et al. 1998). Sandy beaches, formerly inhabited by species such as terns, 

have been spoiled by tourism in many parts of the world (Catry et al. 2004). 

i. Shooting and hunting 

The annual killing of seabirds (notably seaduck and auks) is still a major factor affecting populations of 

seabirds, and in some areas hunting pressure is clearly unsustainable (Joensen 1978, Wendt & Silieff 

1986, Mead 1993, Petersen 1994, Noer et al. 1995, Meltofte 2001, Merkel 2004, Wiese et al. 2004). 

In Greenland, major declines in bird populations have been reported and these could be attributed to 

extensive shooting (Meltofte 2001). 

j. Chemical pollution 

In the 1960s, several populations of seabirds and marine mammals crashed as a result of pesticide 

discharges in the river Rhine (Koeman et al. 1969, Koeman 1971, Swennen 1972). The release of 

chlorinated hydrocarbons and numerous other chemicals is still an issue (Heidmann et al. 1988, Furness 

1993, Nisbet 1994), and seabirds are used as indicators of marine pollution of this kind (Becker et al. 

2003). DDT and organochlorines (Oha) seriously affected the overall reproductive success of Herring 

Gulls Larus argentatus, for example. Chick development was possibly damaged by the chemical 

contaminants HCB, p,p'-DDE, and alpha-HCH. DDT concentrations found in Herring Gull eggs, along with 

those of TEQ (Toxic Equivalents) detected in the eggs of both Herring Gulls and Common Terns Sterna 

hirundo, were at levels associated with embryo toxicity and impaired hatching success (Cifuentes 2004). 

k. Discussion 

It is quite impossible to rank the various anthropogenic threats to seabirds in order of importance. 

The ranking would certainly vary across areas and between species. Some effects are immediate 

(killing birds instantly) and some are more gradual (chemical pollution, food shortages). Fishing activities 

are an even more complex issue, given that fishing benefits certain seabird species but is 

disadvantageous to others (Furness 1993, Tasker et al. 2000). 

Furness (1993) evaluated the impact of that various sources of pressure had on seabird numbers 

under six headings: human exploitation, disturbance and disturbance-induced predation, fisheries, 

pollution, habitat change, and disease. The study assessed the past, present and future situation, 

ranging the different impacts on seabirds from nil or trivial to important or overwhelming. According 

to Furness, the historical impacts of human exploitation for food and introduced alien animals had 

Appendix IV 


83

84 

Appendix IV 


both had an ‘overwhelming’ effect, while that of oil pollution and other lipophilic substances had been 

‘important’. The author also qualified feather collecting, bird collecting, culling or management, 

recreational pressures, discharge of offal and other waste, pesticides and habitat change as other 

‘important’ historic sources of impact. For the present, Furness listed oil pollution as a source of 

‘overwhelming’ impact (albeit with regional variation in importance), and considered introduced alien 

animals, discharge of offal and other waste, and reduced fish abundance to be ‘important’ sources of 

impact. In the projection to the future, none of the original hazards were listed as ‘overwhelming’, but 

several, including oil pollution and the previously unmentioned effects of eutrophication, were listed 

as ‘important’. 

Oil pollution is a major threat to seabirds because of the scale of the problem, because it affects regions 

that are very important as wintering and staging areas for large numbers of seabirds, and because oil 

affects both adults and juveniles regardless of their physical condition prior to contamination. For species 

listed as ‘highly vulnerable’ in the chapter entitled “Sensitive species, sensitive areas”, oiling should be 

seen as one of the most important hazards today. 

l. In conclusion 

• A list of major threats to seabirds should include: direct exploitation, bird collectors, introduced alien 

mammalian predators in colonies; by-catch in fisheries, drowning induced by entanglement in ghost 

nets, food depletion through over-fishing, competition with fisheries, destruction and disturbance of 

habitat, shooting and hunting, and chemical pollution. 

• The relative importance of these threats would vary across areas and between species. Some effects 

are immediate, and some are more gradual. Fishing activities can benefit some species, but are 

disadvantageous to others. 

• Oil pollution is a major threat to seabirds because of the scale of the problem, and because adults as 

well as juveniles are affected, regardless of their physical condition. 

• For species listed as ‘highly vulnerable’ in the chapter entitled “Sensitive species, sensitive areas”, 

oiling should be seen as one of the currently most important hazards.

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