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Oil continues to sicken birds Instead of eating, they clean By MARK FREEMAN REEDSPORT -- Simon Wray watches a pair of sanderlings preen themselves on the sand, realizing the birds must get sicker before he can help them get better. The sanderlings, plump little members of the sandpiper family, are trying in vain to cleanse their faces and legs of sludgy oil spilled from the fractured freighter New Carissa. Only the sickest of the shorebirds let Wray, a state wildlife biologist, get close enough for capture. These two sanderlings aren't there yet. "You see these animals, and you want to help them," Wray says. "But the fact is you can't catch them until they're really sick. It's not a fun thing at all." Wray is part of a team of biologists combing Southern Oregon beaches for birds and other wildlife injured or killed by fuel oil washed from the New Carissa's wreckage near Coos Bay. Up to 70,000 gallons of fuel oil had spilled by Thursday from the 639-foot ship, which ran aground Feb. 4 near the Coos Bay mouth. An estimated 135,000 gallons remained on board as Coast Guard crews continued efforts to keep that oil from causing further environmental damage. The teams of biologists roaming beaches from Coos Bay to Reedsport have found 46 dead birds, 23 with obvious signs of oil. One dead bird was a marbled murrelet, which is a threatened species. None, however, are snowy plovers, another threatened species that inhabits the Coos Bay-area beaches. "It's disturbing to see oil on the beaches," Wray says during a break from his Thursday surveys. "It's disturbing to see the birds impacted. It's disturbing that this is necessary. "On the other hand," Wray says, "it's good that it hasn't reached the proportions that it could ... yet." Wray's work is no walk on the beach. Immense surf has strewn huge twists of root wads, trees and other debris along the beaches, as tides blast away at the fore-dunes. There is little room for the biologists to maneuver. Wray fights 50-mph winds and driving rain that stings his face as he walks along the Tenmile Creek area some 15 miles from the New Carissa's wreckage. He's pulled one dead and oil-soaked fulmar from the sands. Mostly, however, he's counting sanderlings and gulls and other birds whose feathers show the dingy stains of fuel oil. Instead of feeding, the oil-stained birds constantly preen themselves. Wray says only a fraction of the dead birds will be tallied. Most likely will fall to ravens, crows and other predators who have turned the beaches into a sandy buffet. This passes the toxic oil into the food chain. "It's kind of insidious," Wray says. "The stuff might be on the water and the beaches, but it doesn't end there. This thing will play out for months." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA