Oil And Wildlife Kind Of Don’t Mix
Agence France-Presse reports:
Most oil-struck birds and turtles will die alone and uncounted at sea or buried in coastal wetlands, amid warnings the true toll from the Gulf of Mexico spill may never be known.
“Historically, they estimate that 10 percent of [oiled] birds are found,” said Rebecca Dunne, of Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research. “Others sink or they’re scavenged.”
Some 1,075 birds—633 of which were dead—have been recovered in the 50 days since the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig sank spectacularly some 52 miles off the coast of Louisiana. It took weeks for the massive, undulating slick to reach shore. Nearly half of those oiled birds have been found in the past 10 days.
Complicating rescue and recovery efforts are the sheer size of the slick and the fact that so much of it remains offshore. Dead birds sink in a matter of days. Oiled turtles and dolphins rarely end up on beaches.
Add to that the long-term impact from giant plumes of oil floating deep in the water column and a massive quantity of chemical dispersants that multiply toxicity levels. Most experts agree that the chemical dispersants are needed to keep as much oil as possible out of fragile coastal wetlands, but others have expressed concern that they could do more harm than damage to marine wildlife.
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