Nyac Says Goodbye
Originally uploaded by Jane Ray’s Wildlife Rescue Series
Nyac, one of eight otters rescued from the Exxon Valdez oil spill and brought to the Vancouver Aquarium, died yesterday. She was 20 years old.
By July, Nyac was suffering from limited energy, tremors and some facial paralysis — symptoms of what turned out to be leukemia. The Vancouver Aquarium’s staff veterinarian Dr. Martin Haulena said, “Leukemia and some other cancers have been linked to exposure to petroleum products and hydrocarbons.” A 20-year-old oil spill is still wreaking its havoc.
Like apparently 11 million other people, I was completely captivated by the YouTube video of Nyac holding hands with her pen mate Milo. CTV also offers a gallery of photos of the sweet and social little creature (including the one shown here).
My first personal experience with an oil spill was in 2000, when a North Vancouver canola oil shipping plant allowed 400,000 litres of the substance to leak into Burrard Inlet one Sunday morning in February. Friends and I rescued a surf scoter that was being repeatedly smashed up against the seawall, and took it to the Wildlife Rescue Association of BC (WRA), where volunteers had been working round the clock to try to save the hundreds of animals that had been caught in the spill.
A bird coated in canola can’t thermoregulate; can’t therefore dive for food and becomes anaemic and malnourished; can’t lift its wings from the water and fly; can’t escape from predators.
If that bird is “lucky” enough to be rescued, the rehabilitator will have a harder time removing the canola oil than if it were crude. On the other hand, crude oil is far more immediately destructive — toxic on the inside and caustic on the outside.
Next, the “lucky” animal will undergo the most stressful experience of its life: a minimum of 30 minutes of handling by humans (natural predators), being held partially immersed in a tub of hot water, soaped up, rinsed off, again and again, until the water comes clean. Then held up, down, backwards and forwards, neck and wings extended, while the rinsing takes place.
If it survives the stress, it might stand a chance at making it back to the wild.
If, however, the rehabilitator leaves even a drop of oil the size of a baby fingernail on that bird, the oil will disperse through the feathers, destroying feathering and bouyancy and insulation once more, and requiring yet another session of washing. With each wash, the animal’s chances for recovery become slimmer.
Nyac was one of those odd “success” stories — and I put “success” in quotes, because Nyac wouldn’t have survived without rescue. Couldn’t be left in her natural environment. Spent the whole of her life in captivity. Lived longer, perhaps, than her wild counterparts, and then died of complications from the man-made disaster that overtook her just a month after she was born.
But she lived, and she learned and played and (to anthropomorphize … maybe), she loved. And she touched and taught over 11 million of us — more than any other wild otter might have done.
It’s up to us now to ensure that her unique life and legacy are carried forward. So the green refrain continues: consume less, walk more, know as much as you can about offshore drilling and northern pipeline projects, seek alternatives, be part of the answer.
And play. And hold hands.






