there is hope for winged creatures in Germany. The Westkuestenpark Oiled Seabird Rehabilitation Centre at St Peter-Ording in Schleswig-Holstein is preventing around 200 birds from being killed due to an oil spill.

Earlier, cleaning oiled birds was thought to be futile by wildlife authorities. "They would literally hire hunters after spills, who would go out and either wring necks or shoot the oiled birds on the beaches,' says a spokesperson for the International Bird Rescue Research Centre (ibrrc), the organisation leading the latest operation.

However, the ibrrc proved that well-organised rescue missions can save large numbers of birds when the centre saved around 40,000 African penguins from an oil spill off the South African coast.