Release of the New ‘EUROWA Basic Oiled Wildlife Response Manual’

The EUROWA network has recently published its new ‘Basic Oiled Wildlife Response Manual ’, providing important guidance for volunteers and first-line responders who may be called on to provide initial first aid care for oil affected wildlife.

The new manual is based on the POSOW Oiled Wildlife Response manual that was developed in 2012-2013 as part of the POSOW project (Preparedness for Oil-polluted Shoreline Cleanup and Oiled Wildlife Interventions), by Sea Alarm together with project partners from WWF Finland, ONIRIS (France) and Wildlife Rescue Centre Ostend (Belgium).

The new version of the Manual has gone through some minor updates and improvements to the content and has been given a wider European focus than just the Mediterranean (which was the focus under POSOW). The new Manual has also been given a complete new layout in line with the set of technical guidelines developed under the EUROWA framework. The Manual has now been released by Sea Alarm as Part G of the EUROWA standards series, for which the POSOW project partners have kindly granted their explicit permission.

This manual is an integral part of the EUROWA BASIC Responder course designed for individuals without previous experience who wish to assist in the rescue and rehabilitation of
oiled birds. The course helps them to understand and implement basic wildlife response skills that they can perform under supervision of experienced responders. Like the original POSOW version, the Manual is divided into two parts:
• PART 1 with background information, general principles of oiled wildlife response and a presentation of wildlife response actions and tasks which can be undertaken by BASIC Responders.
• PART 2 containing technical sheets to be used in the field and on the work floor of a facility.

The Basic Oiled Wildlife Response Manual is already available in Dutch through an initiative led by SON-Respons, and will soon be released in a number of other languages (Polish, Finnish, German and Spanish) thanks to the work of EUROWA Charter organisations including WWF Poland, WWF Finland, ProBird in Germany and Submon in Spain. This is an important step in order for those organisations to better spread oiled wildlife response knowledge in their home countries and be understood by as many potential wildlife responders as possible.