Birds and Marine Wildlife / 71nutrition and dehydration. They can also be poisoned by eating oil-
contaminated vegetation or prey.
Marine mammals too face many potential risks from petroleum.
They spend much of their time at the water’s surface, making it
more likely that they will be exposed to oil slicks. The heavy fur
coats of sea otters function much as feathers do for birds by keep-
ing them warm and buoyant. Unlike other marine mammals, which
have the protection of a layer of blubber, sea otters rely entirely on
their fur for insulation. The fur traps a layer of air next to the ani-
mal’s skin that keeps cold water away from the skin. Otters groom
themselves continually to maintain the integrity of their coats. The
combination of thick fur, which readily retains oil, and the drive to
groom, which causes them to ingest oil, makes otters extremely vul-
nerable in spills. When oil-soaked, the fur cannot maintain the air
layer, and the result is hypothermia. Mammals without haircoats,
including dolphins and whales, some species of seals, and sea lions,
do not face the same risk of hypothermia because, with the excep-
tion of juvenile animals, their blubber protects them from the cold.
Nevertheless, these animals face risks from inhalation, skin expo-
sure, and ingestion of oil. For example, following the Santa Barbara
spill, oil clogged the blowholes of dolphins, causing lung hemor-
rhages.^33 Following the Exxon Valdez spill, according to petroleum
industry reports, gray and harbor seals suffered from “respiratory
distress... conjunctivitis, corneal ulcers, skin ulceration and bleed-
ing of the gastro-intestinal tract and lungs.”^34 Like birds, marine
mammals also face risks from ingesting oil-contaminated prey and
vegetation.
The process of cleaning birds and animals has been described
as “relatively expensive and logistically complicated.”^35 It involves
far more than simply cleaning off the oil. If you have ever walked
along a beach and stepped in a blob of “tar,” which is oxidized crude
oil, you know how hard it is to remove, even from the relatively
durable human skin of the feet. I lived in South Florida for nearly
two decades, where lifeguard stands along the beaches provide tur-
pentine or mineral spirits and rags to remove tar from the feet of
beachgoers. These solvents suffi ce for small amounts of oil on the