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Maine Wildlife Crews Test Readiness for Oil Spill

BANGOR, Maine - Members of the Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Department are out today searching for "oiled animals" in a field training exercise.

"There will be no actual oil involved - we're not going to put any oil into the environment," says spill response coordinator Don Katnik. 

Katnik says that members of the department will spend time looking for stuffed animals that represent oiled wildlife in an area around the coves and shoreline of Sears Island. The field training is undertaken every few years, he says, to ensure that the department has a plan in place to respond to an oil spill, including the location of animals in distress, and the containment of the contamination.

The spill response training was implemented following the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in 1989.