Dawn soap works best for cleaning birds–who knew?” ~ Brian Merchant, treehugger.com

Obama’s oil slick is spreading while BP execs come up with ridiculous ideas and oil gushes at a rate now being estimated by some scientists as 70,000 barrels of oil a day. The cleanup is going to be extensive though a lot of damage has already been done to the environment there.

It’s been 21 years since the notorious Exxon Valdez oil spill dumped over 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska. That is also considered by some as a low estimate.

The oil soaked birds in particular became the icons for the destruction cause by that ecological disaster. Perhaps because for millennia birds have been a symbol of freedom and flight that humankind sought to mimic with technological advances that could lead us to the solar powered planes of the future. Maybe there’s some sense of birds as symbols of optimism or the future itself.

Oil soaked birds don’t look free or even remotely prepared to take fight at a moments notice. An oil soaked bird not attended to typically dies. Their images can tug at our heart strings in ways we may not realize, but some birds get cleaned up and sent out into what’s left of nature again.

Who knows what the future holds for them afterward but the good folks at Tri-state and International Bird Rescue organizations have set up rescue centers around the Gulf. You’ll be hearing talk of cleanup in the coming weeks and months so here’s video of how these birds are actually cleaned via treehugger.com

There are 2 more videos to go with this one which you can check out at treehugger.com

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