Riverboat residents scrambled to join a dramatic multi-agency operation to rescue swans, river birds and their chicks after a mile-long oil slick polluted waters from Harlesden to Little Venice yesterday afternoon.
Officers from the RSPCA found around 30 birds including geese, moorhens, mallards and a family of swans fighting for their lives and “caked” in a cooking oil-like substance after residents alerted the Environment Agency and the River and Canal trust to an oil slick in the Grand Union Canal near Little Venice.
The birds were taken for urgent treatment at the Swan Sanctuary in Shepperton, where they are now being cared for by sanctuary trustee Steven Knight, who joined the seven-man rescue operation covering a mile-long stretch of water clogged with the polluting substance.
He said: “It was terrible, they were caked in vegetable oil, as you picked them out of the water their feathers were clogged together and the oil was squeezing out and there was a baby cygnet and other small birds. They’re now washed up and recovering in the safe hands of our bird hospital before going into our indoor pool tomorrow.”
A spokeswoman for the RSPCA thanked volunteers who offered to help save the birds and said there were at least four more geese that needed to be rescued in a return operation today.
The Environment Agency’s clear-up operation attempted to stem the spillage which was first reported on May 9 by installing a boom and is taking water samples as part of an ongoing investigation.
Houseboat resident Ramin Fakhir, 52, said: “I’ve been complaining about this filthy stretch of water for two months now because every single duckling and every single gosling is dying. I’m tearing my hair out. Yesterday I alerted the Environment Agency to this devastation and I hope the people responsible get what they deserve.”
In a statement a spokesman from the Canal and River Trust said: “The source has been identified and we believe it is cooking oil and given the quantity one possibility we are jointly exploring with Thames water is that it has been dumped knowingly. If this is the case it is idiotic for someone to do this without thinking of the consequences of this kind of pollution and people are rightly angry- to say we are frustrated is an understatement.”
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