Abstract
A LIVELY and informative discussion regarding the destruction of sea-birds by oil waste took place at University College, London, in May last, under the auspices of the University of London Animal Welfare Society, and the report of the meeting has just been published (ULAWS Monographs and Reports, No. 2a). Prof. N. K. Adam opened the discussion. A summary of Prof. Adam's special report has already appeared in NATURE of July 17, 1937, p. 100. Many representatives of oil and shipping interests and naturalists took part in the subsequent discussion, the general tenor of which indicated that, in spite of legislation and a 50-mile limit for the discharge of oil, the amount of destruction was still very great, Prof. Adam putting the estimated death-roll of sea-birds at from 10,000 to 200,000 a year. Only international action is likely to be effective in bringing this destruction to an end, and since the maritime nations are almost entirely opposed to the compulsory fitting of oil separators to vessels, efforts are being made to prohibit the discharge of waste oil in certain areas where the effect is likely to be greatest. Mr. Sanford D. Cole described the Wheeler system by which the cleaning out of oil tanks, double bottoms and bilges is carried out mechanically and much more efficiently than by hand, and suggested that the installation at various ports of separator barges fitted with this American contrivance might go far to diminish the evil of oil pollution.
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Destruction of Sea-Birds by Oil. Nature 141, 324–325 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/141324d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/141324d0