Water over the bridge

The March-April issue of American Scientist contains a commentary by Julia K. Parrish and P. Dee Boersma (Macroscope, "Muddy Waters") that purports to "assess the validity of the claims made concerning seabird mortality as a result of the [Exxon Valdez oil] spill." Parrish and Boersma would have us believe that estimates of seabird mortality made in 1990 by myself and colleagues were exaggerated and that later upward revisions of those estimates were unwarranted. Their assessment, however, is seriously flawed.