In West Angle Bay, near Milford Haven, one of only seven colonies nationwide of Green Rockpool starfish was wiped out, and the whole ecosystem was threatened with damage and disruption.
Within a twelve mile radius of the slick are thirteen Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI’s), protected because of their outstanding scientific value. Among these is Skomer Island, a marine reserve owned by the Nature Conservancy Council and home to internationally important colonies of manx shearwater, puffin, lesser black-backed gull, herring gull, great black-backed gull, guillemot, razorbill, storm petrel and shag (over 32,000 birds in total). There is also a large grey seal population.
There are thought to be 85,000 grey seals around Britain’s coast – approximately half the world’s population. Around 5,000 live on the Pembrokeshire coast, and the majority of their breeding sites were affected by the oil spill. Monitoring in the summer of 1997 assessed the impact of the oil spill on the seals and found they had been affected by eating contaminated fish, or by residual oil on their breeding beaches.
Oil lapped Skomer’s shoreline, just 30 metres from the cliffs at Skomer Wick, a nesting site for 14,000 birds. Seabirds need to keep their feathers clean in order to be able to remain buoyant and insulated. Birds can preen oil from their feathers, and in doing so, can ingest poison which kills them within days. It is estimated that between 20,000 and 40,000 seabirds, mainly scoter and guillemots, but also cormorants, red-throated divers, mute swans and razorbills died as a result of the disaster. A strong northerly wind blew the worst of the oil towards Carmarthen Bay and the Bristol Channel, 60km to the south, thus avoiding a greater catastrophe on the bird islands, which are only 10km north of the crash site.
Carmarthen Bay is an important wintering site for up to 10,000 common scoter. Around 600,000 seabirds returned to the Pembrokeshire coast in 1997 from wintering overseas. They may have escaped the direct effects of the oil spill, but damage to the marine ecosystem meant that they were in danger of starvation or breeding failure.
The Sea Empress lost far more of her cargo than the 37,000 tonnes spilled by the Exxon Valdez into Prince William Sound in 1989, killing half a million seabirds and countless fish. Tourism was badly affected, as the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park is usually visited by 500,000 people a year. Many were put off by the thought of oily beaches and polluted seas.
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