Volunteering for Oiled Wildlife Response

Mrs Dutton being assisted to put on her protective equipment as part of the

Hazwoper component of the Annual IWR training

Ever wanted to be one of those folks who helps with wildlife response in the event of an oil spill?  Seems simple, eh?
Well, like a lot of things in life, what began for many of us as something we would just jump in and do because it was the right thing to do has become a bit more complicated over the years.  The example I am most familiar with was in my youth as a boy scout where we'd do all sorts of community service projects (usually the gross litter pick up work that adults seemed  averse to) unsupervised.  Nowdays, its rare to see scouts doing anything without lots of supervision and protection.  And that seems a pretty good analogy for the training I went through with my wife and about 40 other keen volunteers at the BP Center at the weekend - we joined the International Wildlife Research/Alyeska/SERVS training program on care and rehabilitation of oiled sea otters. 
Both Karla and I had been involved in oil spill incident responses many years ago, but under OSHA and Alaskan protocols for spill response were not qualified to be able to join any such response here.
The IWR team comprises scientists, veterinarians and wildlife specialists with expertise and experience in the care and rehabilitation of oiled wildlife. For more than 15 years, IWR has provided expertise for preparing and executing oil spill response operations for sea otters and other marine and terrestrial mammals - see http://www.wildliferesearch.com/.
Working with Drs Randy Davis and Terrie Williams from IWR, ASLCs Dr Pam Tuomi, Dr Catherine Berg from USFWS and Paul McDonald from Alyeska/SERVS, we completed a very intense, but immensely interesting, day of training and are now all set to be first responders at the basic operational level.  This is the kind of training one hopes to never have to use, but as the boy scout motto cautions, and the Exxon Valez spill reminds us, it really is better to "be prepared!"
It was wonderful to see such strong community interest in being first responders.  I'd encourage anyone with an interest in Alaska's amazing marine wildlife to consider undertaking the training (course details are on the IWR site).  For anyone wanting to get some hands on experience with wildlife rehabilitation, you are also most welcome to come down to Seward anytime and be a strandings program volunteer at the Center - I know Tim Lebling and our other husbandry staff would really appreciate your help!