OIL-TROUBLED WATERS
- Everyone who cares for the sea or for birds, or for humane dealing, should know the findings of the Audubon Association of America which has been studying the question of the spreading of mineral oil over the surface of the sea by naval and other ships. One passage is forcibly stressed by the R.S.P.B., whose Bird Notes and News is issued seasonally from 82 Victoria Street, London, S.W. 1. The winter number is especially full of interest. The passage, quoted from Bird Lore, the organ of the Audubon Association is this, and is written by that very thorough investigator, Dr. G. W. Field :
"My observation convinces me that the oil-film is well-nigh continuous for at least 500 miles out of New York harbour, and off Cherbourg, France, and that a single, continuous sheet of oil at least 100 miles in diameter existed in December, 1931, midway between the French and Newfoundland coasts."
This beastly scum is wholly unnecessary. The apparatus called an oil-separator is simple to install and work, and it pays dividends on more than 95 per cent, of the British vessels on which it is used. Birds are killed, plants are killed, fish are killed, and it is not improbable that the floor of the sea becomes unwholesome for any living thing. We cannot yet enforce the use of such separators internationally ; but the humane feeling of the world should force the owners within each nation to equip .their ships with such a device. Our
British shipowners, though not immaculate, have taken a lead and given a lead. These murderous fields of slime float even to the haunts of the penguin, which of all birds are least well able to avoid the infection. But it is difficult to save the life of any birds whose feathers have been affected. . They die of shock, or of some equivalent feeling, even when completely cleansed.
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