A total of 15,977 birds have been found dead on the coasts of France and Spain since the Prestigeoil slick disaster late last year, the Spanish government said today.
Another 5,561 birds, from some 30 different species, have been found alive after being affected by the spill, the government said in response to a question in parliament.
According to figures from the Spanish Ornithology Society as well as French and Portuguese groups, 10,984 birds were found on Spain's northwestern Galician coast, the region worst-hit by the oil slick, the government said.
A further 3,250 were found on the northern Basque country coast, 2,648 in France, 2,609 on the northern Spanish Asturias coast, 1,207 in Cantabria and 840 in Portugal.
The government could not say, however, how many more birds could have been killed, but not washed ashore. According to various studies, anything between two and 70 percent of birds wash ashore following an oil slick.
The Liberian-registered Prestigetanker sank in November in rough seas some 270 kilometres off the Spanish coast, spilling thousands of tonnes of heavy fuel oil and wreaking havoc on the region's economies, dependent on fishing and tourism.
Southwesterly winds pushed most of the oil slick onto Spain's environmentally fragile and beautiful Galician coast. The tanker is estimated to have spilled 25,000 of its initial cargo of 77,000 tonnes of fuel oil.
AFP