Birds and Marine Wildlife / 69amount of oil that would leak out over the course of years. The
French had better results using straw and sawdust, rather than
chemicals. However, the French faced the obstacle of having no
state support for the response. The scale of the incident triggered
the implementation of the national response plan intended for post-
nuclear disaster, in which communities would be cut off from one
another. It assumed that localities would take full responsibility for
any response efforts. However, offi cials in Brittany had no exper-
tise for such an incident, and the lack of support from Paris initially
caused chaos and anger.
The Torrey Canyon spill prompted international legislation on
oil pollution, which was woefully inadequate at the time.^28 Whereas
oil spill management had been unprepared for the inevitability of
large-scale spills, wildlife rescue was virtually an unknown ter-
rain. The coasts of Cornwall and Brittany provide a nesting area for
several species of sea birds, including puffi ns, guillemots, and ra-
zorbills. The spill occurred during the birds’ annual northerly mi-
gration from North Africa, Spain, and southern France to the British
Isles. Typically, the birds arrive exhausted after a fl ight of several
hundred miles. Once on the coast of Cornwall, they feast on the rich
bounty of the sea. This time, however,
those birds that touched down on oil-covered waters, or were
washed over by the advancing black tide, and subsequently
made it to shore, were in pitiful shape. Their feathers were
clotted and scraggly. Their throats and intestines had been
seared by oil or detergent. Postmortems were to fi nd lungs
clogged with froth. Most had been profoundly chilled by
the disruptive effect of the oil on their bodies’ natural insu-
lation. Many could not fl y because of shock and exhaustion.
Among those rescued and cared for, an acute loss of appetite
was noted. The birds could not assist in their own recoveries
by taking proper nourishment. Few survived.^29The local bird hospital normally treated a few hundred birds a year,
but it saw 4,000 just in the week following the wreck. The Royal