Estonia gains more ADVANCED Responders

Estonia is moving forwards in strengthening its preparedness for an oiled wildife incident, as the Estonian Fund for Nature (ELF) recently held an ADVANCED wildlife responder course.

The course was held on 2-6th October at Ojako Tourism Farm, in Pärnu county on the southwest coast of Estonia. It was organised by ELF in collaboration with the Environmental Board and funded by the Environmental Investment Centre (KIK). 15 participants from Estonia (and one from Finland) successfully completed the course. Some of the Estonian participants have been part of ELF’s pool of volunteers for many years and some are also group leaders in ELF’s nature volunteering camps.

Running the EUROWA ADVANCED course requires a full setup of seabird rehabilitation equipment. The Environmental Board provided some of the equipment needed from their stockpile. This included two tents and a pool that were set up by the participants and used for practical exercises during the course. ELF provided the remaining equipment, including a number of dead birds for trainees to practice their skills with and they brought along the Estonian member of the Roboduck family! Roboduck is a great training tool used to bring more realism to the practical challenges of catching oiled birds.

The course was delivered by EUROWA trainers Sascha Regmann from ProBird and independent EUROWA experts Agni Kaldma and Maarja Mirjam Rajassar (assistant trainer), affiliated with ELF. They led the participants through theory sessions and hands-on practice in setting up a seabird rehabilitation facility, including assembling the net-bottom cages, capturing oiled birds, carrying out simple medical procedures at intake and washing to remove the oil.

This training has boosted the number of volunteers in Estonia who know how to handle and rehabilitate oiled wildlife, thus enhancing Estonia’s preparedness for real-life incidents and increasing the survival rate of oiled birds. There are now more people who are aware of what kind of equipment the Environmental Board has in stock, and how tents and other structures are set up, so making the workflow faster and more precise in case of an oil spill accident. The course also helped to strengthen collaboration between Estonian and Finnish NGOs that deal with oil spills.

The crew of the Estonian nature show Osoon filmed the course on Oct 5 and the clip will air after about one month. The trainers and partcipants enjoyed the picturesque location and great food and appreciated the friendly employees of Ojako.