DAUPHIN ISLAND, Alabama -- Heaped on a table at the laboratory, the pile of beaks, feet, eyeballs, feathers and whole bird carcasses testified to what may be the oil industry’s most unexpected environmental impact.
For the second year in a row, researchers at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab have found the remnants of migratory birds in the bellies of tiger sharks caught off Alabama.
The body parts provide compelling evidence of the mortal toll that oil platforms take on birds migrating across the Gulf of Mexico each year. The carcasses also highlight an issue federal officials have essentially ignored since it was revealed seven years ago.
A federal study from 2005 described a phenomenon known as “nocturnal circulation.”Groups of birds migrating across the Gulf on cloudy nights can be disoriented by the brightly lit oil platforms and fly around them in circles for hours, often until they become exhausted and fall into the sea and die.
That study called for further investigation, but federal officials never followed up, according to a statement from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement emailed to the Press-Register.
No comments:
Post a Comment