In a wildlife rescue centre on New Zealand's Bay of Plenty,volunteers grimly bag the oil-soaked bodies of dead birds, victims of thecountry's biggest sea pollution disaster.
Huge green bins are lined up in one corner of the centre atTauranga to receive growing numbers of avian carcasses in the wake of an oilspill from the container ship Rena, which ploughed into an offshore reef onOctober 5.
"It's not something you can ever prepare yourselffor," vet Pauline Conayne told reporters, as volunteers clad in protectiveboiler suits carried out post-mortems on oil-covered birds in a screened-offarea nearby.
"When you see photos it touches your heart, but whenyou see it in person it's really devastating and quite hard. We're actuallylooking at bringing in a counsellor on-site."
The number of dead birds that have been recovered in theNorth Island bay, which teems with wildlife and is a nesting area for rarespecies such as the endangered New Zealand dotterel, stands at 1,000.
But Conayne estimates that may be only a fraction of thetotal killed on the oil-blackened beaches, wetlands and estuaries of an arearegarded as one of New Zealand's environmental jewels.
"What we're seeing as far as the dead population thathas been brought in is only a very small portion of what has died outthere," she said.
No mammals are known to have died so far but wildlife teamsare scouring the huge bay checking the seals, dolphins and whales that frequentits once pristine waters.
Conayne said a handful of fur seals had been"pre-emptively" captured to keep them out of the path of the oilslick from the Rena, which remains stuck on the reef amid fears it will breakup and release more fuel.
At the wildlife centre a media minder, perhaps mindful ofthe region's reliance on tourism, tried to shepherd reporters away from a tentmarked "post-mortem", telling volunteers not to display dead birds inview of prying cameras.
But with oil-saturated birds washing up on a 60-kilometre(37 mile) of coast, images of environmental devastation have already beenbeamed around the world.
The World Wildlife Fund's New Zealand marine specialist BobZuur described the sights confronting wildlife teams working along the coast.
"We've been scaling the rocks looking for wildlife,it's difficult to see the birds and they appear frightened," he said.
"We saw a shag about 20 metres offshore, flapping inthe water, trying to clean itself. It couldn't fly, it couldn't dive, it didn'tknow what to do, and we couldn't reach it. It was heartbreaking."
Yet there have been success stories, particularly treatinglittle blue penguins -- the smallest species of the flightless birds, whichhave responded well to treatment for oil contamination.
"Throughout the day they're fed, they're swum, andgenerally taken care of and loved to death," Conayne said, standing beforea small swimming pool converted into a makeshift penguin watering area.
The birds usually have a feisty nature and are behaving asnormal, she explained. "The penguins are trying to tear people to shreds,so that's really good."
WWF's Zuur said it would take years to know the full impactof the oil spill on the Bay of Plenty's ecosystem, which also contains hugemarine kelp forests and is home to a large fishing industry.
Conayne worries constantly about the disaster's impact onwildlife.
"I look at every bird that flies over now and askmyself, 'Do you have oil, are you OK?'" she said.