By Jay Holcomb,
IBRRC Executive Director
In 1978 Alice
Berkner, founder of IBRRC, began testing all available
products on the market in an attempt to discover what product
worked the best to remove oil from birds feathers while having
minimal impact on the animal.
DAWN dish washing detergent performed better than
any other product. It wasn’t until the mid 1980’s
that we even approached Procter and Gamble for a donation
of the product but once we did they began donating DAWN to
us as needed.
See: Testimonial to
Dawn
During the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 we
received hundreds of cases of DAWN in the early days of
that spill
when few other shipments of any kind made it to Valdez, Alaska.
Knowing that we were in for a long hall Procter and Gamble
sent in a team to help up create and volunteer training video
that could be used during the spill and afterwards. That
video
has historic footage of our first weeks during that spill.
Recognizing the importance of the rehabilitation
work we and others did in the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Procter
and Gamble generously funded The Effects of Oil on Wildlife
Conference held in Washington DC in 1990. The focus was on
the Exxon Valdez disaster and the coming policy and attitude
changes that it was responsible for. Since then Procter and
Gamble have generously donated money towards the 1995 Effects
of Oil on Wildlife Conference held in Monterey, CA and donated
DAWN to various organizations in many countries including
the US, Canada, Brazil, Argentina.
As other product makers have relentlessly approached
us to endorse their usually ineffective “bird cleaning”
products we have always been grateful that Procter and Gamble
has never exploited the use of DAWN as a tool for helping
oiled wildlife. As a matter of fact they have always taken
a back seat to us and the animals even when the press and
everyone else asks about the surprising use of a common dish
washing detergent as a life saving tool in rehabilitating
oiled birds. For the record, we are and always will be committed
to what is in the best interest of the animals in our care.
We have washed thousands of birds around the world and DAWN
works the best for the birds and that is the bottom line.
Procter and Gamble recently decided to take their
support of our work and the protection of the environment
a step further by developing a web site,saveaduck.com, to
educate the general public about pollution and all of our
common role in taking responsibility for how our daily actions
impact the natural environment. They have also offered environmental
grants for kids and committed to donate money, through a DAWN
cap collection competition, to IBRRC and our sister organization,
Tri-state Bird Rescue to help in our ongoing efforts to help
wild animals who are often victims of our own manmade pollution.
All of which is preventable by taking simple steps in our
own lives and becoming aware of how we impact our environment.
We want to thank Procter and Gamble for their
ongoing support of IBRRC and for their efforts in providing
opportunities for the public to learn about the environment
and how we fit into it. Check out saveaduck.com
and learn more about this and the birds.
Also see:
It was pretty “dark”
before “Dawn”
Press release about
the Dawn program
E-Mail us for more info: jay@ibrrc.org |
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Procter & Gamble's
Save-a-Duck site
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Program highlights:
Fundraising: From August 1 – December
31, 2002, consumer purchases of Dawn will result in a
10¢ donation per bottle, up to $50,000, to International
Bird Rescue Research Center and Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research.
These groups will use the funds to further their animal
rescue efforts, and to educate young people about the
importance of respecting wildlife.
Saveaduck.com
Dawn has launched, a web site
that encourages people to learn more about wildlife rescue
and increase their support of organizations dedicated
to rescuing wildlife affected by oil spills, such as
IBRRC and Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research.
Education
To further involve families in the effort
to safeguard our wildlife, Dawn is offering thousands
of dollars in educational grants for wildlife-related
classroom programming for school children in grades kindergarten
through sixth that save and redeem the most caps from
bottles of Dawn by November 15, 2002. Individual grants
of $10,000, $3,000 and $2,000 will go to the First, Second
and Third place winners respectively. Information about
this part of the campaign is also available on www.saveaduck.com.
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