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Photo by Alexander Chernykh
A total of 7,336 oiled waterfowl specimens have been discovered in the emergency zone following the Dec. 15 fuel oil spill near Russia's Black Sea coast. According to a report by the operational headquarters of Krasnodar Krai, volunteers and professionals delivered 3,166 birds to rehabilitation centers, but only 495 of them survived — that is, roughly 15%.
245 of the surviving birds have been released into the wild, and 250 remain in rehabilitation centers. Most of the birds affected by the fuel oil have died, the headquarters notes. The oil spill mainly affected the great crested grebe population (about 6,000 specimens), as well as coots and loons.
The environmental disaster, which Viktor Danilov-Danilyan, the head of research at the Institute of Water Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, describes as “the most serious in Russia since the beginning of the 21st century,” occurred after the wreck in the Kerch Strait of shadow fleet tankers Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239, carrying 9,000 metric tons of fuel oil.
Ecologists warn that it could take 10-15 years to restore the ecosystems of the coast, and the possible health effects on vacationers in the region cannot yet be predicted. Birds and dolphins are already dying en masse in the polluted area. Heavy oil slicks have reached occupied Crimea and the Ukrainian port city of Odesa. And experts warn that the contamination may yet spread to the coasts of Georgia, Turkey, and other Black Sea countries.
As The Insider previously wrote, the Russian authorities spent $5 million to dispose of sand contaminated with fuel oil. However, there have been documented cases of officials attempting to bury bags of polluted sand instead of recycling it.