Alderney Wildlife Trust have raised concerns for birds who may get caught in a large oil slick and there is a race against time to save the birds.
Some Guillemots have been found coated in the clear substance that is preventing them from flying.
Now Alderney Wildlife Trust is worried that the substance could be PIB which has been responsible for the death of birds in the past.
Roland Gauvain, trust manager, said: “They were approximately 1km north of Alderney and only 1.km south east of Burhou, our main puffin, lesser black-backed and storm petrel colony.
“Without an actual sample being taken it is impossible to say if this is PIB. The back-combing and gluing of the feathers seems very similar to the two dead birds we have previously recovered and had samples returned for.
“I have 10 years of recovering injured birds fouled and otherwise from around the island and having seen PIB first hand I am fairly confident that these birds have PIB or some very similar substance on them.”
Now the trust want to get the comunity to help out by helping them search for injured birds.
Mr Gauvain added:
“The problem with the Channel Islands is that with the size of our tides we may not see the results of it as the UK have done. Unless we can get samples in the water we can’t identify what type of PIB this is.
“Our greatest fear is that we won’t have birds washed up and the birds are dead, out at sea and that we won’t know anything about it until next year and beyond.
“We then would not have the evidence to put pressure on to get it stopped.”