Presentation
Integrating wildlife across Incident Command
DescriptionWildlife response is not always fully integrated into the main incident management system (IMS). This has significant implications for wildlife, wildlife habitat, wildlife response actions and other traditional response activities such as aerial, marine and shoreline operations. The integration of wildlife across the IMS and other operational activities provides several key benefits from meeting the response objectives and to the environment impacted and at risk. Benefits include efficiencies in response actions for logistics, timeliness, and costs of the response. Better outcomes to protect wildlife and habitat from the pollution event itself and allowing more informed response prioritisation for protection and clean-up efforts. Better protection for wildlife and habitats against dispersant, containment and clean-up response activities dealing with the pollutant. Other advantages of wildlife integration include better engagement opportunities with the public and communities who often have a very strong personal interest in wildlife protection during spills. The paper looks at the advantages and disadvantages of operational units working under a range of IMS integration approaches summarizing that full integration is best. Wildlife integration also has the capacity to support risk management practices especially where dangerous wildlife encounters are likely (e.g. crocodiles) protecting all responders. Wildlife response actions where animals are in captive care for rehabilitation may also go beyond clean-up activity timelines, this situation is discussed and how this can be best managed.
Event Type
Paper
TimeThursday, May 16th8:40am - 9:00am CDT
Location278-280
Response