Six beavers got contaminated from a Utah diesel oil spill in March this year and still under recovery.
Dalyn Erickson, executive director at Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah, is hopeful that the beavers would fully recover as soon as possible and be allowed to go back into the wild in three weeks.
The beavers have displayed a remarkable status of recovery as they move around looking healthy, happy, and beautiful. It’s truly unbelievable considering the nightmare that they have all been through. Erickson didn’t expect the beavers to heal rather quickly and felt deeply moved by just watching them.
The pipeline was identified as the Chevron pipeline which leaked around 20,000 gallons of diesel gas on March 18. In order to prevent fuel drifting into the Willard Bay located in Box Elder County, a beaver dam had to be built. However, the petroleum had severely saturated the beavers which in turn had to endure gastrointestinal and respiratory problems.
Officials from the Division of Wildlife Resources in Utah had expressed their plan to release the beavers in a Rich County watershed which will be a part of the habitat rehabilitation project. Phil Douglas, a conservation manager, explained the important role of beavers such as building dams, restoring the water table, and restoring vegetation. He believes that involving the beavers in the habitat restoration project could lead to positive results.
So far, most of the recuperating beavers have totally healed from intestinal and respiratory problems. One beaver, however, still show signs of pneumonia.
Active cleanup of the Willard Bay fuel spill is now declared as complete. Officials from the Utah Department of Environmental Quality are now conducting an assessment of the area to find out if it poses further health risk to humans and danger to the ecosystem.
Though the news about the cleanup gives us much relief, assistant director John Whitehead has revealed that the full environmental recovery of Willard Bay will have to take at least one or two seasons of vegetative growth. This is because the place had been deeply affected with the massive cleanup being conducted in the area.
