The Ecological Society of America (ESA) and the ESA Student Section are organizing several efforts to address the effects of the oil spill on the shores of Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama. These actions include sharing of datasets to evaluate biodiversity impacts and hands-on volunteering:
SHARING OF DATASETS: The aim is to develop a pre-impact wildlife assessment to make monitoring possible in impact sites faster and more accurate. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have begun similar programs for sediment samples in FL, MS, AL and LA. If you have datasets and/or photographs that could be used to evaluate the biodiversity of the shores of the Gulf of Mexico before the oil spill (e.g. transects, surveys, etc.), please submit them to [email protected] with the subject line "Pre-spill information" at your earliest convenience. Word, Excel, CSV, JPG or similar formats are welcome. Please make sure to attach a detailed explanation (and metadata) of the material being made available (i.e. variables, date of census, location) so that ESA graduate students who have agreed to collate all the information can do so in the most effective way. Ultimately, ESA will provide summaries of these datasets to researchers based in the Gulf of Mexico to help them establish monitoring sites. VOLUNTEERING: Please visit the following links for information. Attention: Keep in mind that many of these volunteer efforts require specialized training and protective gear (see links below for more information) because petroleum is toxic to the respiratory system and skin. LA: http://www.volunteerlouisiana.gov/ MS: http://www.volunteermississippi.org/1800Vol/OpenIndexAction.do FL: http://www.volunteerfloridadisaster.org/ AL: http://www.servealabama.gov/2010/default.aspx BP training location for volunteers in Alabama and the Florida panhandle through May 21: http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/news/gulf_oil_spill/bp-to-hold-oil-spill-clean-up-classes Audubon volunteering program: http://www.audubonaction.org/site/Survey?ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&SURVEY_ID=3400 Rescue of oiled birds: http://www.tristatebird.org/ Deepwater Horizon: http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/whc/owcnpdfs/marineresponseflyer.pdf Oiled Wildlife Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=121557757860409&v=wall International Bird Rescue Research Center: http://www.ibrrc.org/ Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Rescue Program: http://www.auduboninstitute.org/about/conservation/lmmstrp Marine Rescue Team: http://rescue.neaq.org/ Oiled Wildlife Care Network Blog: http://owcnblog.wordpress.com/ For more detailed information, you can also visit ESA's Ecotone "Taking action" post: www.esa.org/esablog/conservation/taking-action-what-is-being-done-and-what-you-can-do-for-the-gulf/ Nadine Lymn Director of Public Affairs Ecological Society of America 1990 M Street, NW Suite 700 Washington DC 20036 202.833.8773 ext. 205 202.833.8775 Fax
