In 2002 I witnessed and produced a documentary on the Prestige oil spill in northern Spain, the worst environmental disaster in european history and bigger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Despite best efforts by SEO Birdlife workers to recover and clean the oil covered seabirds, of the thousands hand washed birds, SEO’s own studies showed that few if any survived in the months following. The estimated total of birds that died in that oil spill was over 300,000. The damage to the marine environment was incalculable as the oil was not contained and spread across thousands of kilometers of coastline from Spain to France, Portugal and the UK. The sunken hull of the Prestige continues leaking oil today from deep beneath the sea. See video clips of oil spill stock footage damage on our website at http://www.AdventureImagery.com/oil-spill, including SEO Birdlife volunteers cleaning the birds by hand.

Hopefully the recent oil spill in the San Francisco Bay area will not affect too much of the wildlife there, especially since it is my home as well. On the bright side, at least it was a small spill in comparison, spilling “only” 58,000 gallons versus 20,000,000 gallons from the Prestige. The most important factor is the containment, and it sounds like it will be controlled quickly and effectively versus the very delayed action and poor job done in Spain.