In 2002 we witnessed and produced a documentary on the Prestige oil spill in northern Spain, the worst environmental disaster in European history and bigger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Despite best efforts by SEO Birdlife workers to recover and clean the oil covered seabirds, of the thousands hand washed birds, SEO’s own studies showed that few if any survived in the months following. The estimated total of birds that died in that oil spill was over 300,000. The damage to the marine environment was incalculable as the oil was not contained and spread across thousands of kilometers of coastline from Spain to France, Portugal and the UK. The sunken hull of the Prestige continues leaking oil today from deep beneath the sea.

See video clips of oil spill stock footage damage at AdventureImagery.com, including SEO Birdlife volunteers cleaning the birds by hand.