OSRL has a well-established history of supporting wildlife emergency preparedness and response through more than 15-years of formal collaboration with the Sea Alarm Foundation.
Sea Alarm’s Technical Advisory Service, along with the wildlife equipment packages, makes up the wildlife services available to our Members as part of the Service Level Agreement.
These collaborative efforts have also helped catalyse and fund the Global Oiled Wildlife Response System (GOWRS) Project – an effort to improve international collaboration and to design an international (Tier 3) framework for wildlife response that meets the needs of the industry and harnesses the expertise of leading wildlife response organisations
OSRL's five-year wildlife strategic plan (2021-25) builds on these achievements to date and defines a set of strategic activities guided by Four Strategic Aims –Expand understanding, Facilitate Collaboration, Enhance Preparedness and Improve Response Capability.
OSRL’s Strategic Aims for Wildlife Emergency
Preparedness & Response
Wildlife Emergency Preparedness & Response Strategic Plan 2021-25
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This plan is informed by strategic guidance from the OSRL Board of Directors and developed with input from OSRL Member Companies, OSRL staff and leading wildlife response organisations.
View our webinar on the wildlife emergency preparedness & response strategic plan to learn more.
According to the IPIECA Good Practice Guide on Wildlife Response Preparedness
Oiled wildlife response is the combination of activities that aim to minimise the impacts of an oil spill on wildlife (such as birds, mammals and reptiles). Minimising the impacts is achieved by preventing oiling where possible and mitigating the effects of oiling. Response activities can include:
IPIECA Good Practice Guide on Wildlife Response Preparedness
Read the full Good Practice Guide Here:
DownloadUnder the Service Level Agreement (SLA), a Member of Oil Spill Response Limited has "access to expert oiled wildlife advice" via the Sea Alarm Foundation (see SLA Nov 2014, section 4.0.G). This is made possible under a contract signed in 2005 between OSRL and Sea Alarm.
Who is Sea Alarm?
Sea Alarm is a small non-governmental organisation with a four-person team that works to improve global preparedness for oiled wildlife incidents. Sea Alarm's personnel have unique expertise that includes wildlife incident assessment and management, wildlife planning and preparedness development, response network management and alignment, best practice dissemination, and design and development of training and exercises. Sea Alarm experts do not handle animals, but as advisers, help to create the environment and conditions that mobilised wildlife response experts need to make a difference during an incident. Our Members can contact Sea Alarm via the OSRL Duty Manager.
Learn more about Sea Alarm here: Learn More
What does Sea Alarm provide if activated for an oiled wildlife incident?
Under the SLA, Sea Alarm can be activated 24/7 as part of our wider mobilisation. Under the SLA the full-time availability of two persons is guaranteed as follows:
Sea Alarm Service Level Agreement
Download the full Sea Alarm Foundation Service Level Agreement here
Wildlife Response Preparedness
For the last fifteen years, we have partnered with Sea Alarm to support our Members in developing plans and capabilities while improving industry's global oiled wildlife response capabilities, e.g. through the development and management of the GOWRS project. A response without a pre-spill agreed wildlife plan in place will have a large potential for delays and inefficiency. Therefore the best guarantee for a fast and effective wildlife response mobilisation is provided by a pre-spill developed wildlife response plan, implemented through training and exercises. Such a plan is best integrated with the overall oil spill response plan that a Member has in place for its oil exploration, production or transportation activities in a country or area.
Learn more about Wildlife Response Preparedness Services here: Learn More
Wildlife Emergency Preparedness and Response is an integral component of oil spill preparedness and response good practice. To advance and support this integration, a group of leading wildlife response organisations has been working to develop a framework for Tier 3 (international) wildlife response that can meet the needs of the wildlife response community, the oil industry and other stakeholders. This project has now culminated in a proposal for a future Tier 3 Global Oiled Wildlife Response Service.
The proposed wildlife preparedness and emergency response service provides a 'Four-for-Four' Tier 3 Wildlife Assessment Service free of additional personnel charges for four days.
It includes a ready-to-deploy Assessment Team of four experts. This team is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
The GOWRS Assessment Team will evaluate and provide on-the-ground recommendations to clients in the event of a full-scale wildlife response.
GOWRS is a supplementary service to your organisation's primary OSRL membership. Your organisation has to be an OSRL member to access the service.
Global Oiled Wildlife Response Service (GOWRS) Service Information Sheet
Read the full Service Information Sheet here:
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Under the Service Level Agreement (SLA), a Member of Oil Spill Response Limited has "access to expert oiled wildlife advice" via the Sea Alarm Foundation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year (see SLA Nov 2014, section 4.0.G).
This agreement, however, does not include guaranteed access to internationally recognised wildlife response expertise from Tier-3 wildlife response organisations within the broader GOWRS network.
The GOWRS Assessment Team Supplementary Service provides guaranteed a ready-to-deploy Assessment Team of four internationally recognised experts. This team is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Benefits to participating OSRL Members include:
OSRL will offer the GOWRS Supplementary Service to its participating members, providing the threshold number of subscribers is met. Please register your interest or request further information here.
The document provides an overview of the key concepts and solutions in oiled wildlife response preparedness and explains how a higher level of integrated preparedness can be achieved. This document distils the knowledge and experience gained over many years of responding to spills of crude and fuel oils over several decades and many of the same techniques, policies and operating procedures can be applied to spills of other chemicals that are transported by ship, train or pipeline and that may affect wild animals.
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This technical support document, developed as part of the IPIECA-IOGP Oil Spill Response Joint Industry Project and authored by the 11 organizations comprising the Global Oiled Wildlife Response System (GOWRS) Project, serves as a reference to illustrate what should be considered as international ‘standards of practice’ for animal protection and care in an oiled wildlife response.
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This website, which is maintained by Sea Alarm, includes multiple resources on oiled wildlife topics ranging from training, preparedness, response options, publications etc.
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