Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 12, 1994 TAG: 9404120045
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Oiled."
She took the bird, put it in her basement sink and squirted Dawn detergent on its back.
"Hold on, Slick, hold on," she repeated. Gripping the shivering bird's beak in one hand, she worked the soap into the wing feathers, neck, belly and head. The rinse water turned dark gray.
She soaped the mallard up again, and rinsed, soaped and rinsed until the water turned almost clear. Then she wrapped "Slick" up in a towel, gave her a shot of antibiotics and put ointment in her eyes.
Runion's mother, on hand whenever her daughter takes in another sick or injured wild animal, held the duck like a baby. The 3-pound duck rested its beak on her shoulder and closed its eyes.
"I love ducks, they're so sweet," Runion said.
She pointed out that the duck's beak, which should be a yellow orange, had turned green, and the bird had developed a raspy cough. Sure signs, Runion said, that the toxic oil had already poisoned the duck's system.
Runion knows the symptoms. She's treated a number of oiled ducks and geese that have been found along Shenandoah Avenue, like this female mallard.
She and her partner, Edie Anderson, run the Roanoke Wildlife Rescue. Two years ago, Anderson was called in to scrub Amelia, Roanoke's notorious peregrine falcon.
Amelia was one of five falcon chicks released in downtown Roanoke as part of a program to reestablish the endangered species. She had a number of mishaps, including a life-threatening dive into a sludge pond off Shenandoah Ave.
"We've picked up several ducks in that area with oil on them," said B.L. Thomas, acting supervisor of the city's Animal Control Office. "I don't know where they get the oil from."
Despite the industrial activity and traffic, waterfowl seem to like the area, where Peters Creek and other streams flow into the Roanoke River, offering some semblance of habitat.
But sometimes, the birds mistake a sludge pond, a pool of oil or other shiny surface for water and try to land, Anderson said. A couple years ago, she and Runion treated five ducks within a few weeks. All but one died.
Inspectors with the Department of Environmental Quality have looked into the situation, but couldn't pinpoint the source, said Janet Queisser, the pollution complaint investigator who is now in the agency's Richmond office.
She checked facilities at Norfolk Southern and Roanoke Electric Steel, both of which have major industrial operations along Shenandoah, but found nothing that seemed to pose a problem for waterfowl.
"Since we couldn't resolve it, I was pretty sure it was going to happen again," Queisser said. "Right smack in the middle of an industrial area, there's just all sorts of overgrown vegetation" which attracts the birds.
Scott Kroll, an environmental engineer with NS, said there's no indication any of the birds got into oil at the railroad yard. The Department of Environmental Quality had suspected the 6-acre wastewater lagoons, which have a thin layer of oil on top.
But Kroll said the lagoons are surrounded by a fence. "If a duck were to get in and get oil on its wings, it couldn't fly out."
"It would be nice," Anderson said, "if they someway voluntarily put netting" over the open ponds and pits.
Once coated in oil, waterfowl have only a matter of hours before the toxins seep into their blood stream and they perish. They also ingest the oil, trying to clean themselves.
"That's the key is getting it fast," Runion said.
This particular mallard, found March 31, had been hanging around a huge puddle in the road for at least three hours. Trucks passed within feet, and it didn't move. It couldn't fly, and could barely swim.
Two passers-by captured her with a rain poncho and three slices of bread, and took her to Runion's makeshift wild animal hospital at her home on Cotton Hill Lane.
Runion hopes to release "Slick" once the duck is fully recovered.
by CNB