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Fort Jackson, Louisiana. Erica Miller sticks her gloved hand underneath the brown pelican’s neck and spreads the flappy flesh out so she can rinse the last traces of oil out of his throat.

The pelican is just the second oiled bird captured since a massive oil spill began gushing out of the wreckage of an offshore rig which sank after an explosion two weeks ago. It won’t be the last.

The leading edges of the giant oil slick reached the shores of the fragile Chandeleur Islands Tuesday, sullying the wildlife preserve which is home to countless brown pelican, least tern and piping plover shorebirds.

An estimated 2.5 million gallons of crude have streamed into the sea since the BP-leased platform sank spectacularly on April 22 and it could take up to three months to seal off the flow.

Triage centers are set up in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida to treat oiled wildlife rescued from the slick but, so far, there isn’t much to do.

“The toughest part of this spill is not knowing -- not knowing where it’s going to hit shore or when it’s going to hit,” said Miller, a veterinarian with Tri State Bird Rescue.

“As long as the oil can be kept away from shore that’s going to save a tremendous amount of birds.”

The brown pelicans are of particular concern because they were just removed from the endangered species list last year.

The Louisiana state bird’s numbers had been decimated by the use of the pesticide DDT, which was washed off farm fields along the Mississippi River and poisoned the fish at the river’s mouth.

Soon, pelicans started laying eggs with shells so fragile they would smash when the birds lay on them.

Fledglings were brought in slowly from Florida, and the population was slowly rebuilt. But if the oil penetrates too deeply into the marshes where the large shorebirds are nesting, the birds which survive the spill may still have to deal with a poisoned habitat.

A US Fish and Wildlife crew rescued the pelican on Monday from a barrier island about ten miles off the coastal wetlands of Louisiana.

A sheen of oil covered about 80 percent of his body, and he couldn’t fly away because his feathers were stuck together.

That changed Tuesday.

First, Miller sprayed him with a cleaning solution and rubbed it into his feathers, neck and legs while two other women clad in blue plastic suits and yellow gloves held him down.

Then he was carried to series of tubs with a two to four percent solution of dish soap and warm water.

Bubbles poured out of the metal tubs as he stared out of his left eye at a crew of reporters snapping pictures from behind yellow caution tape.

Finally, he was ready to be rinsed clean with two hoses.

Miller stretched out his wings and sprayed between the feathers as he lay pinned down on a table.

She smiled when she saw the feathers fluffing up and the water beading on them, which meant the oil was gone and his natural waterproofing was being reestablished.

The bird was rubbed down with a white towel and taken to a drying room, where he immediately started to preen.

“We literally have ruffled his feathers and now he’s busy putting them back in order,” Miller said.

“As he preens — it’s like combing your hair after a bad hair day — he’s getting them all straightened up and that will reestablish his water proofing.”

Oiled birds can typically be returned to the wild after ten days. But with no end to the oil spill in sight, there may be nowhere safe for him to go.

At least he’ll get plenty of fish to eat.

Agence France-Presse