FORKS — Reservations are requested by today for a training program on collecting bird injury data to support Natural Resource Damage Assessments in the event of an oil spill that is set in Forks on Friday, June 28.

Training will be offered at the Olympic Natural Resources Center, 1455 S. Forks Ave., from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Those interested are asked to submit the names of those wishing to attend, their organization, email address and phone number to Neil_Quackenbush@fws.gov by today.

The training is presented by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, state Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Oil spills are of particular concern where there is extensive refining and transport, such as along the Washington/Oregon Coastlines.

Birds can be impacted by even a small spill and large spills can affect thousands of birds.

One of the goals of NRDA is to identify and quantify injuries to wildlife (such as birds) and then to determine how to best restore the injured resources and compensate the public for the losses.

This training will provide information on how oiled bird data would be collected in the event of an oil spill in Western Washington/Oregon.

There are many simultaneous components of an oil spill response; this is an abbreviated training on only a part of one of those components — assessing bird injury to support the NRDA using the beached bird model.