[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n6i1xao3VA&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

It’s no question that animals – particularly birds – are being severely impacted by the Deepwater oil leak. The oil has already reached shorelines, and marine birds are getting coated. Last week, David asked how a bird covered in oil gets cleaned. Turns out, it’s a painstaking and time consuming process that can seriously stress out birds. But what if we could just stick birds in a washing machine that cleans them in only seven minutes? A major oil company took the liberty of creating just such a machine.

The machine takes just seven minutes, versus as long as two hours of human handling, which reduces the amount of time a bird is under stress in increases how quickly it recovers for release into the wild. From shorebirds to pelicans to sea turtles, the list goes on of animals who are in need of a bath after running into oil slicks. Might we see machines like this put in use during the long, long clean up process we’ll have during and after the Deepwater leak?

Via Treehugger