HAMMOND, La. -- The well is sealed, the responders are breathing easier, and the iconic photos of crude-caked birds are long gone from the front pages. But oiled pelicans and gulls continue to emerge along the Gulf Coast, serving as ambassadors of a disaster still unfolding in slow motion.

The force of the effort to combat the historic spill is "probably most present and evident in the faces and beaks" of the birds taken in for rehabilitation, observed Mike Utsler, who took over as BP PLC's incident commander in the Gulf four days ago. Utsler was among a small group looking on earlier this week as birds were guided through washing, drying and resting in the Louisiana center, and he offered a vow aimed at both the human and avian residents of the region.

"This facility will be here as long as this needs to be," Utsler said, acknowledging that many Gulf locals are wary of what BP's incoming CEO recently described as a "scaleback" in cleanup efforts.

"What they're worried about is, the well being capped" could change the nature of the company's involvement in the region, Utsler explained. "People are concerned about, then, where is the work? Our focus is continuing to be in the shorelines, marshes and wetlands."

The view from above the spill site, where relief well drilling has been suspended ahead of a tropical storm expected to hit the Gulf Coast today. Smaller support vessels have remained on the scene after the damaged well was capped. Photo by Elana Schor.

Nonetheless, the nature of the challenge at the Louisiana bird rehabilitation facility has changed since the days of actively gushing oil. The number of animals taken into the center, located in a converted lumber yard on a sleepy small-town road, fell to 20 on Sunday from an all-time high of 86, even as the Gulf unified command reported an increase in the average daily count of ailing birds (Greenwire, Aug. 9).

"We're seeing predominantly young birds ... that got oiled weeks or days ago" rather than hours before their collection, said Barbara Callahan, director of response services with the nonprofit International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBRRC).

IBRRC and another contractor, Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research, run bird centers in Pensacola; Gulfport, Miss.; and Theodore, Ala. The Hammond facility replaced an earlier wildlife station situated closer to the coast, where birds tended to stay for a maximum of 10 days before being released at an eastern Florida preserve (Greenwire, June 18). Callahan said that at this point in the response, birds' treatment lasts an average of two to three weeks and the animals are now being returned to the state where they were initially found.

IBRRC and Tri-State's effort has treated more than 1,400 animals since the Gulf leak began, Callahan added, which represents the majority of oiled birds collected alive in the area, according to unified command records.

Of the 5,771 birds picked up by wildlife responders in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon leak, 3,902 of that group were found dead, according to the latest federal wildlife report. Still, that number is notably low compared with the estimates of up to 100,000 birds that had fallen prey to the much-smaller Exxon Valdez spill in 1989.

Scientists have attributed that lesser toll on larger wildlife to several factors, including the warmer Gulf waters and the use of chemical dispersants that broke up leaking oil before it made landfall, shifting some of the risk from the shoreline to the deeper waters.

Callahan said her team feels "a lot of pressure" to save as many affected birds as possible, recognizing their power as faces of the spill as well as symbols of the region even as they try to minimize pressure on the animals.

"We're all part of the reason why they're oiled," she said. "We all drive our cars and get in our planes. ... We know we have to tell their story."

Tracking birds' progress

Every bird that arrives at the center, where ample pens and heat lamps help mitigate the shock of oiling, gets its own record and a feather sample taken. The sample is analyzed for oil but not contact with dispersants, though Callahan said that task could be done with gas chromatography.

"It's very difficult to distinguish whether dispersants, oil or a mixture" is afflicting an individual bird, she explained, and "we wouldn't treat that animal any differently" based on the source of its symptoms.

Treated animals are also banded to allow scientists and local birdwatchers to keep an eye on their movements, and officials at the Louisiana center said they have yet to encounter a bird that suffered re-oiling after treatment.

More details on the birds' long-term fate, however -- such as mortality rates or mating behavior -- will likely be hard to come by as the days since the capping of the well stretch into months. IBRRC is not planning radio telemetry studies that would closely track the animals after their release into the wild, Callahan said, but "would be poised to work with any group" that had the capacity to do so.

"The technology is out there," she added, "but you have to have the study set and the financial ability." The bird rescue group has participated in previous telemetry studies, including one after a 2,100-gallon oil spill in Humboldt County, Calif., that left more than 1,200 oiled birds dead or injured in 1999.

Matt Rota, water resources director at the nonprofit Gulf Restoration Network, was concerned at the notion that cash shortfalls could impede long-term research such as telemetry projects, even as BP aims to invest $500 million in studies of the oil leak's biological impact.

"A lot of these data gaps are being exposed" without a clear plan to marshal scientific resources, Rota said. "If the reason for that is that the technology and money don't exist ... that's absolutely ridiculous."

The turtles' tale

The ability of charismatic wildlife to affect public perceptions of recovery was on display yesterday at the Audubon Aquarium in New Orleans, where responders outlined the next steps for the Gulf's sea turtle treatment program.

While "little to no information" was available in the early days of the leak to determine how oiled turtles would fare, "we haven't seen any of the problems we thought that we might see based on the scientific literature," National Marine Fisheries Service veterinarian Brian Stacy said. "We were expecting to see more skin conditions, more organ toxicity."

What happened instead, Stacy explained, was a transition from a high degree of oiling -- with some turtles found in water where crude sent temperatures above 130 degrees Fahrenheit -- to a lower impact on animals collected more recently.

"Many of the turtles we're catching now, we just don't find any oil on them," said Blair Witherington, a research biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission. The protocol for taking in potentially stricken turtles is being changed to focus on the most lethargic and heavily oiled cases.

About 450 turtles have been treated by the cohort of responders that includes Witherington and Stacy. One-quarter of those were released at sea, nearly three-quarters are still undergoing rehabilitation, and 1 percent, or five turtles, were found dead at sea.

Across the Gulf, 503 turtles have been collected alive and 517 found dead, according to the latest federal wildlife report. Of those found dead, 17 are confirmed as oiled.

Stacy took care to point out that the abatement in observed turtle oiling "doesn't mean everything stops," adding that a long-term monitoring program for Gulf turtles is in the works.

That readiness to keep watch on ecosystems hit by oil and dispersants -- even after the damage no longer manifests in the faces of oiled wildlife -- is a key priority for advocates such as Rota, of the Gulf Restoration Network.

"Obviously, if a bird has oil on it, you can say the bird was impacted by oil," he said. "But if you see the collapse of our fisheries in one or two years, it's going to be a lot harder to make that connection. Even if the BP disaster was the culprit."