r 
During the project period, more than 500 wells continued to bum, 
producing vast quantities of soot-laden smoke, and resulting in a heavy 
soot fall-out over much of the eastern and southern parts of the country. 
Many birds were begrimed from flying through the smoke or foraging in 
sooted vegetation; the birds affected included eagles, hirundines, larks, 
shrikes and warblers. 
Desertification has been an accelerating problem in Kuwait: the 
destruction of vegetation, along with compaction and churning of the 
desert surface caused by the movements of hundreds of thousands of 
men and vehicles, has enormously exacerbated this problem. 
Saudi Arabia 
At least 25-30,000 seabirds were killed by the oil spills, mainly Black- 
necked Grebe Podiceps nigricollis, Great Crested Grebe P cristatus, Socotra 
Cormorant Phalacrocorax nigrogularis and Great Cormorant P carbo; it is 
likely that the grebes were particularly badly hit given the high density 
of beached corpses found. Any oil which did not sink had washed ashore 
along the northern half of the Saudi Arabian Gulf coastline by early April, 
carpeting most of the intertidal zone between BChaf ji and Abu Ali, some 
460 km of shoreline (Dennis 1991). 
This coast is known to be important for waders on an international scale, 
holding up to 260,000 waders in winter (Z warts et al. in press: based on 
a survey in January /February 1986). The ICBP/NCWCD wader survey 
found that extremely few waders were present on the polluted coast, 
which from rough calculations using the raw data of Zwarts et al. 
probably normally supp>orted over 100,000 waders in winter (and certainly 
at least that total on a year-round basis). What happened to the wintering 
wader population along that coast when the oil impacted remains 
uncertain, since no ornithologists were able to visit the area until one or 
two months later. The mass death of invertebrates observed by the team 
on the oil-smothered tidal flats indicates that food shortage is sure to be 
a major factor in the continuing absence of waders. On current knowledge 
of wader behaviour, there would have been a discrete population of 
waders which would have traditionally wintered in that area, and also 
one which would have habitually depended on the area for stop-over 
refuelling on spring and /or autumn migration. Both have now been 
deprived of their essential feeding grounds. 
The Arabian Gulf is the last coastal refuelling site available to migrant 
waders such as Bar-tailed Godwits Limosa lapponica before their final 
flight across Asia to the polar regions in spring. Such a drastic loss of food 
is bound to have placed major stress on these waders and will have 
certainly affected their breeding success this summer, as will any 
significant degree of oiling. Virtually all 39 wader species recorded were 
3 
