these here because their papers shed no light on food habits in the southeast- 

 ern United States. 



SUSCEPTIBILITY TO OIL POLLUTION 



Small numbers of Common Mergansers have been involved in oil spills (Table 

 14). King and Sanger (1979) suggested that this species is moderately vulner- 

 able to oiling along the northern Pacific coast of North America. The fact that 

 these ducks are uncommon in southeastern waters and prefer fresh water implies 

 that they would not be adversely affected by offshore development of petroleum 

 resources . 



Table 14. Number of dead birds and number and percentage of dead Common 

 Mergansers found after major oiling incidents. 



Area 



Dates 



Number 

 of oiled 

 dead 

 birds 



Number 

 of dead 

 Common 

 Mergan- 

 sers 



Percent- 

 age of 

 Common 

 Mergan- 

 sers 



Source 



Northeast 

 Britain 



Jan. -Feb. 10,992 (a,b) 1 



1970 



0.009 Greenwood et 



al. 1971 



North-central 

 Kattegat, 



Denmark. 



Mar. 1972 4,759 (a) 



0.04 Joensen and 

 Hansen 1977 



Waddensea , 

 Denmark 



Dec. 1972 9,151 (a) 



0.01 



Joensen and 

 Hansen 1977 



Baltic sea 

 coast, Poland 



1970-1974 3,867 (a,c) 1 



0.03 Gorski et al. 

 1977 



Chesapeake Bay, 

 Virginia 



Feb. 1976 8,385 (a) 11 



0.13 Roland et al. 

 1977 



Chesapeake Bay, 

 Virginia 



Feb. 1978 10,000 (c) 39 



0.39 Perry et al. 



1979 



(a) Total includes only those birds identified to species. 



(b) Total includes some birds that were not oiled. 



(c) Figure is estimate based on counts of dead birds. 



443 



