WHAT do you do to stop birds of a feather sticking together? Try Quix. Just a squirt gets the dirt. Or the oil, in this case. Quix is what they are using at the Dublin Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (DSPCA) to clean up birds affected by the oil spill in Dublin Bay at the weekend. It was donated by Procter & Gamble.
And Calor Gas provided a geyser, with lots of high pressure hot water, to wash down those sticky feathers.
They are not the only commercial companies to come to the rescue of all those well oiled razor bills and guillemots. Wrights of Howth have supplied fish for the recovering birds, while Stena Sealink transported 135 of them to Wales on Wednesday, by Seacat from Rosslare. If you can't fly, what better way to travel. But they will have to fly back.
The birds were being taken to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) at Pompton, Milford Haven, where they have specialist equipment for cleaning oiled birds.
The RSPCA has also loaned some of its cleaning apparatus to the DSPCA to assist it with cleaning birds too ill to travel. The DSPCA has appealed "urgently" to people who may have picked up damaged birds to bring them to its shelter at Woodtown Cottage, Rathfarnham, as soon as possible. Phone (01) 4935502.
It is estimated that about 500 birds have been affected by the spill- some by ingesting the oil - causing lung and/or liver damage, as well as kidney failure - and some whose natural protective feather oil has been damaged, affecting their buoyancy, leading to drowning. About 300 have been recovered by the public, from back and front gardens, and the seashore. Most have been wrapped up in towels and brought to the DSPCA.
They have been soaped and showered, and then tested for some days in a pool to see whether they will sink. They are not set free until the natural water proofing oil has returned to their feathers. In the meantime, human contact is kept to a minimum. As a DSPCA inspector, Mr Maurice Byrne, explained, the birds become dependent very quickly. Many have come in already stuffed full with the milk of human kindness, and expecting more. This is not good for wild sea birds.
Mr Byrne was in no doubt that those responsible for the spill would never be found.
"Someone washed out their tanks as they were passing," he said, ruefully indicating ships in the night. But he is anxious that an emergency clean up plan be put in place, involving the State and voluntary groups, to cope with other such spills in the future.