The numbers so far:

Number of Western grebes coated in oil: 23

Number died: 8
Number repeatedly bathed and now released: 8

Number awaiting another day of baths (at someone else's house this night): 7

Prognosis of those already released: not so good. None of them are oil-free, so ingestion of waste oil during the accelerated preening process is inevitable. Maybe it'll be enough to be fatal, maybe it won't. But the slim chance of survival in the wild is better than the recommended euthanization.

Best line of the ordeal, from the Wife to some nosy neighbors driving slowly past us with our cacophony of grebes on the front porch:

"What? Don't you bathe your grebes on Sunday?"