Carter and Kuletz 



Chapter 26 



Mortality Due to Oil Pollution 



1989, the oil supertanker Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million 

 gallons of crude oil, that eventually travelled 750 km to the 

 southwest and covered approximately 30,000 km 2 of coastal 

 and offshore waters in southcentral Alaska (see fig. 1; Piatt 

 and others 1990a). 



Immediate Mortality 



Alcids had the highest rate of mortality, as compared to 

 the population at risk. Of six species of small alcids, Marbled 

 Murrelets suffered the highest mortality (Ford and others 



1991a, Piatt and others 1990a). An estimated 75 percent of 

 Marbled Murrelets in U.S. waters breed in Alaska (Ralph 

 and others, this volume a). Other than southeast Alaska, the 

 primary population areas are Prince William Sound, the 

 southern Kenai Peninsula, and the Kodiak archipelago (Piatt 

 and Ford 1993; Piatt and Naslund, this volume). Therefore, a 

 large portion of the U.S. murrelet population was at risk 

 from the Exxon Valdez spill. 



Immediate impacts of the Exxon Valdez oil spill on 

 seabirds were attempted through two main approaches: (1) 



Figure 1 Extent of surface oiling (dark shading) from the Exxon Valdez oil spill as it spread from Prince 

 William Sound in late March 1989 to the Alaska peninsula by late June 1989. 



262 



USDA Forest Service Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-152. 1995. 



