Fears for thousands of seabirds after North Sea oil tanker and cargo ship explosion
There are fears for hundreds of thousands of seabirds on the East Yorkshire coast following an explosive collision between an oil tanker and a cargo ship.
Bempton Cliffs, near Bridlington in East Yorkshire, sees around 500,000 seabirds gather there between March and August to breed on the towering white cliffs that overlook the North Sea.
The Independent visited the wildlife site, home to puffins, gannets, kittiwakes and guillemots on Tuesday, just a day after the collision.
Visitor experience manager Danielle Jackson said: "The next few weeks will be critical. After this collision our focus will be using the volunteers and staff that we already have here to monitor the seabirds from the cliff tops.
"We will watch them as they are coming in and we will monitor the number of chicks they have and the number of eggs they lay, which we do usually, but on top of that we are going to be looking at signs of oiled birds and signs of birds that are potentially in distress.'
A 59-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter after the collision between a tanker and a cargo vessel in the North Sea.
The Portuguese vessel Solong is still ablaze after the collision with US tanker Stena Immaculate off the east coast of Yorkshire on Monday.
One crew member from the Solong is still missing and presumed dead, after a search and rescue operation was ended on Monday evening.
The team at RSPB Bempton Cliffs will take photographic evidence of the birds and keep records of what they see, while working alongside other organisations to establish the full impact.
Ms Jackson said: 'If needed, there are wildlife charities that will be able to rehabilitate the birds, and if possible, look at releasing them back out, but at the moment we just don't know what the situation is going to look like.'
Ms Jackson added: "We are highly concerned about the impact the collision will have on our seabird population here and what this could mean for their futures.
"We don't know exactly how long it's going to take for the birds and the wildlife and the nature to recover from this kind of incident. I think partly because we don't really know exactly all the details. It's developing hour by hour, so we don't yet know what we're working with.
"I think as we see things over the next couple of months develop, we're going to have a better idea on what we're dealing with, and how the wildlife is going to be able to adapt or not to this kind of situation."
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