Oil Spill Threatens Thousands Of Birds

The 8,400-gallon oil spill in San Francisco Bay may not be major in size, but it packs a significant ecological threat because of the timing.

Hundreds of thousands of migrating birds and ducks are stopping to feed in the bay on the fall voyage to Southern California and Central America. Some winter in bay marshes and mud flats.

“It’s never a good time for an oil spill,” said Marge Kolar, manager of the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. “But this is a critical time for the Bay. The birds stop over here on their way south. They come in hungry to eat. This is the time the birds put on fat reserves to fly further south.”

On Monday, a ship undergoing repair at San Francisco Drydock Inc. at the foot of 20th Street leaked 80,000 gallons of bunker fuel oil from an open valve. About a tenth of the oil reached the bay, according to the Coast Guard.

Scientists reported that more than 100 sea gulls, grebes, cormorants, loons, egrets, oyster-catchers and endangered brown pelicans had become oiled. The International Bird Rescue Research Center in Berkeley was caring for five gulls.