ABSTRACT
On October 31, 1984, the vessel USS Puerto Rican exploded at sea off San Francisco. The disabled vessel was towed offshore and on November 3, 1984, the stern sank releasing, at least, an estimated 12,000 barrels of petroleum products. California experiences oil spills affecting natural resources every year. Rarely are these spills as large as the Puerto Rican spill, but natural resource protection minimized the losses of bird life as a result of this incident. Planning for oil spill cleanup helped prevent more losses to these natural resources. In addition, some bird cleaning and rehabilitation equipment and facilities have been provided. The equipment and facilities will remain available to reduce the effect of future spills of oil in, or offshore, California.