Toll on Bird Life Grows, 3 Weeks After Oil Spill

Some three weeks after a ship spilled 58,000 gallons of heavy bunker fuel into San Francisco Bay, the toll on bird life continues to grow. Some 20,000 birds may have died, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Several of the species affected -- Snowy plovers, marbled murrelets, sanderlings, Clark's grebes and rhinoceros auklets, according to the Chronicle -- were already facing declining population numbers, making the oil spill that much more tragic.

Volunteers and rehabilitators have released more than 200 birds after cleaning them. It's a noble task, but the numbers are stacking up faster in the loss column -- another reminder that preventing the next oil spill is far preferable to trying to clean up after it.

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