Wildlife and oil in the Antarctic: a recipe for cold disaster

Abstract

The increasing rate of incidents involving vessels in the Southern Ocean (including vessels sinking) has highlighted the potential for substantial fuel spills into the Antarctic environment. An increasing number of tourist and fishing vessels, often without ice strengthened hulls, are penetrating farther into, and staying longer in, Antarctic waters, with a focus for destinations of wildlife concentrations. Based on a survey of national operators in the Antarctic, there is little preparation for an oil spill event that involves Antarctic wildlife. This is a recipe for a catastrophic spill event, with the potential for high numbers of oiled wildlife in a remote part of the world where there are major logistical constraints on the provision of equipment and skilled response personnel. Here we chronicle shipping incidents that have led to oil spills in the Southern Ocean, the current legislation and contingency plans currently in place by national Antarctic operators, and examine their preparedness and expertise for an oiled wildlife event response. It is clear that national, fishing and tourism operators are manifestly unprepared for an oiled wildlife event in the Southern Ocean. We identify five critical constraints to any response and provide recommendations that address these constraints.

Conservation and the 4 Rs, which are rescue, rehabilitation, release, and research

“…; Ruoppolo et al. ), habitat destruction from storage‐dam development (Vié ), artificial light sources (Wilhelm et al. ; Rodríguez et al.…”

“…), Antarctica (Ruoppolo et al. ), Asia (Agoramoorthy ; Kido et al. ), Australia (Tribe & Brown ; Guy & Banks ), Europe (Kirkwood & Sainsbury ; Ancillotto et al.…”

Antarctic Futures

“…Rubega 1989, 1990;Kennicutt and Sweet 1992;van den Brink and de Ruiter-Dijkman 1997;Ruoppolo et al 2012). Shipping-related impacts Ships are used extensively by tourism operators, fishing operations and National Antarctic Programs to access and to work in the Antarctic and surrounding waters.…”

“…Ruoppolo et al 2012). As the amount of marine traffic increases, there will be increased discharges of sewage, sewage sludge, grey-water and ground food wastes, increased undersea noise and higher likelihood of shipping accidents, fuel spills and ship strikes on marine mammals (e.g.…”

Spectral characteristics analysis of oil film among sea ice

“…Ice-infected waters [3]. For China, the Bohai sea and its surrounding distribute many oilfields, such as the Liaohe oilfield, Dagang oilfield, Shengli oilfield, Jinzhou 9-3 and other large oil fields or offshore oil and gas fields.…”