Short-term damage to coastal bird populations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait following the 1991 Gulf War marine pollution

Following the unprecedented oil pollution during the Gulf War in 1991, the International Council for Bird Preservation (ICBP) worked with the National Commission for Wildlife Conservation and Development and the Environment Protection Council, in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait respectively, to quantify the damage to bird populations and to recommend actions that should be taken in response. This article summarizes the findings of these ICBP-related surveys with respect to the marine pollution. No bird species has had its world population reduced to such an extent that recovery is impossible. However, biogeographical populations of four seabirds suffered severe mortality (22-50+%), and the intertidal flats of the Saudi Arabian Gulf coast, a globally important feeding and re-fuelling area for migratory wader Charadrii populations, were severely polluted with a consequent drastic reduction in the number of water birds supported by this habitat. Internationally important breeding tern populations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were virtually unaffected by the pollution in 1991. © 1993.