Conservationists are warning of an ecological disaster in the South Atlantic after a cargo vessel broke up on Nightingale Island, home to a sizeable chunk of the world’s population of endangered Northern Rockhopper Penguins.
The MS Oliva was carrying some 1,400 tonnes of heavy crude when it ran aground on 16 March. A slick from leaking oil now extends 13 km offshore, according to the UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
Nightingale forms part of the UK’s Tristan da Cunha overseas territory, where thousands of Northern Rockhoppers live.
“The scene at Nightingale is dreadful as there is an oil slick around the entire island,” said Trevor Glass, the Tristan Conservation Officer, in a statement. “The Tristan Conservation Team are doing all that they can to clean up the penguins that are currently coming ashore. It is a disaster.”
According to the IUCN – which lists the bird as endangered – around 80% of the animals live in the Atlantic. Around 20,000 pairs are thought to live on Nightingale Island, with between 21,000 and 32,000 on the nearby Inaccessible and Tristan islands and 32,000 to 65,000 at the slightly further away Gough Island.
Richard Cuthbert, a biologist with the RSPB, says there may be over 200,000 penguins currently on the islands.
“The consequences of this wreck could be potentially disastrous for wildlife and the fishery-based economy of these remote islands,” he says (press release). “The Tristan da Cunha islands, especially Nightingale and adjacent Middle Island, hold millions of nesting seabirds.”
Conservationists are worried that rats from the MS Oliva may make their way ashore, further devastating the seabirds on Nightingale. The ship is carrying 60,000 tonnes of whole raw soya beans which could also destabilise the environment.
The government of Tristan da Cunha said that a salvage tug is expected on site today, although it says “it is thought there will be little to salvage and that the task now is essentially a clean-up operation”. To this end the tug will also assess the impact on the ecosystem.
Image: Northern Rockhopper in Berlin Zoo, via Wikipedia under Creative Commons.