Louisiana, Florida Residents Differ on Views of Long-Term Effects of Oil Spill
ScienceDaily (Apr. 12, 2011) -
One year after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion on the Gulf Coast, new research from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire shows that despite the roughly equivalent economic compensation, Louisiana and Florida residents differ in perceptions about the current and long-term effects of the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history.
"Louisiana residents were more likely than Floridians to say their family suffered major economic setbacks because of the spill, to expect compensation by BP, and plan to leave the region as a result of the spill. Louisianans also were more likely to think their state and local governments were doing an excellent job responding to the spill and to trust newspapers as a source of information regarding the spill," said Jessica Ulrich, a doctoral student in sociology at UNH and research assistant at the Carsey Institute.
The research is part of the Carsey Institute's Community and Environment in Rural America (CERA) initiative. Since 2007, Carsey Institute researchers have conducted nearly 19,000 telephone surveys with randomly selected adult Americans (age 18 and above) from 12 diverse rural locations.
Carsey researchers surveyed 2,023 residents of the Gulf Coast following the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in April 2010. During the late summer, while oil was still gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, researchers conducted telephone interviews with 1,017 residents of Louisiana's Plaquemines and Terrebonne parishes and 1,006 residents of Florida's Bay, Gulf, and Franklin counties.
Respondents were asked how they perceived the oil spill to be affecting their families, communities, and the environment, their levels of trust in sources of information about the spill, and whether they perceived institutional responses to the spill as effective.
The key findings show:
Nearly one-half of all Gulf Coast residents (48 percent) perceived damage to the environment and wildlife as the most serious result of the oil spill.
Perceptions regarding the impact of the spill reflect the economic differences in the two states --
Floridians are most concerned about effects on tourism and Louisianans on the fishing and oil industries.
The majority of Gulf Coast residents thought that the economy, fishing industry, beaches, and wildlife would recover within a few years after the spill.
Gulf Coast residents had little faith in BP to rectify the situation after the oil spill. Fifty-nine percent did not trust the information BP provided about the spill, and 69 percent thought BP was doing a poor or fair job responding effectively to the spill.
Although more than one-half of the respondents from both states experienced either major or minor economic effects from the Gulf oil spill, only 16 percent of Floridians and 18 percent of Louisianans have been compensated or expect that BP will compensate them for the losses.
Louisianans were more than twice as likely as Floridians to think that their state and local governments were doing an excellent job responding to the spill. Approximately three-fourths (77 percent) of Gulf Coast residents thought that the federal government was doing a poor or fair job responding.
Nine out of 10 Gulf Coast residents plan to remain in the region despite the economic and environmental impacts of the spill. Those planning to move because of the spill are more likely to be Louisianans than Floridians.
"CERA surveys, such as the one conducted in the Gulf in the wake of the BP spill, can gather important subjective information about perceptions of changes occurring in rural America. The findings can be utilized by local leaders, policy makers, and disaster response teams to help foster healthy and sustainable communities that can rebound from -- and perhaps prevent -- even large-scale disasters like the BP oil spill," Ulrich said.
Showing posts with label Gulf of Mexico. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gulf of Mexico. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
BP Spill Fine May Undercount Dead Turtles, Birds, Group Says (Via HerpDigest)
BP Spill Fine May Undercount Dead Turtles, Birds, Group Says
By Laurel Brubaker Calkins - Apr 12, 2011
BP Plc (BP/)'s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico killed or sickened as many as 200 times the number of animals estimated by the government, an undercount that could limit the company's spill-related fines, an advocacy group said.
The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group based in Tucson, Arizona, said in a study released today it found five times as many sea turtles, 10 times as many birds and 200 times more marine mammals were injured or died than official estimates. BP faces civil penalties based, in part, on the number of wildlife and fish killed or harmed by more than 4.1 million barrels of crude that poured into the Gulf last year.
The government's counts haven't been updated to reflect the dozens of bird, turtle and dolphin carcasses that are washing ashore this spring, Tierra Curry, a biologist with the center, said in today's report. The group added those casualties to the official tallies, then multiplied those numbers "by accepted scientific multiplication factors" to reach what it calls the "true mortality counts," she said.
"The numbers of animals injured by the Gulf oil spill are staggering," Curry said. "The government's official count represents a small fraction of the total animals harmed by this disastrous spill."
U.S. tallies released in mid-February counted wildlife harmed by the spill to include 1,146 sea turtles, 8,209 birds, and 128 dolphins and whales Curry said, citing government data.
By the center's estimate, the spill caused harm or death to about 6,165 sea turtles, 82,000 birds of 102 species and as many as 25,900 marine mammals, including four species of dolphins and whales.
Separate Studies
Scientists working for environmental groups and government agencies have been conducting separate studies to estimate the spill's impact on Gulf wildlife, including fish and shrimp populations. The studies rely on multipliers, as scientists say exact counts of killed or sickened animals are impossible, given that the majority of carcasses sink into the ocean, rot unseen in marsh grasses or are consumed after death by predators, according to Curry.
The center has filed a citizen's suit against London-based BP for Clean Water Act violations. It has also sued the Interior Department over offshore drilling policies' impact on wildlife. Both lawsuits are pending along with hundreds of cases against BP and other companies involved in the oil spill, which are consolidated in New Orleans federal court.
"The Center for Biological Diversity's is an independent study,'' Wyn Hornbuckle, a Justice Department spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement. "The government's investigation and assessment of damages to natural resources and wildlife is ongoing.'' He declined to comment further..
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Florida Sea Turtles and The Impact of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (Via Herp Digest)
Florida Sea Turtles and The Impact of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
Submitted by AMANDA BRYANT, SCCF Sea Turtle Coordinator
From CaptivaSanibel.Com 2/22/11
This year's sea turtle nesting season will begin on May 1, with Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation staff and volunteers gearing up to cover island beaches.
Last year, many of us spent our spring and summer watching in horror as the Deepwater Horizon Oil rig exploded and the well it serviced pumped barrels upon barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
From April 20 until the well was capped in July, sea turtles were center stage as a poster animal for the disaster. The Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) was responsible for handling the impacts on sea turtles along the Florida shoreline.
Efforts to protect sea turtles began almost immediately. These efforts included on-the-water search and rescue, documentation and collection of sea turtles stranded on or near to shore, nesting beach protection and observation during cleanup activities.
Approximately 450 sea turtles were rescued at sea, all but five alive. Less than one percent of these turtles died during rehabilitation. Releases of rehabilitated turtles into oil-free waters began as soon as the well was capped. To date, all have been released, with the exception of 40 sea turtles that are still receiving care.
On the beaches of the panhandle, Florida's only oiled beaches, emerging hatchlings faced almost certain death. The decision was made to relocate nests at 47-49 days of incubation (about one week before they would hatch) and release the hatchlings on the eastern coast of the state.
Eggs from 274 nests were carefully dug up and removed from the nest. They were placed in coolers with damp sand from the nest and transported near Cape Canaveral. The FedEx trucks used to move the eggs were temperature controlled, air-cushioned and equipped with special pallets to hold the coolers in place.
Every effort was made to reduce or eliminate unnecessarily jarring. At this stage in development, eggs are very vulnerable to movement, which can result in the death of the hatchling.
The coolers were kept in a temperature controlled facility and monitored until the nests hatched. Hatchlings were then released at night on nearby beaches.
In all, this massive undertaking unearthed and relocated 28,568 eggs and released 14,796 hatchlings. The hatch success (percentage of eggs that hatch out of the total number of eggs) for relocated nests matched that of nests left to hatch without assistance.
(Bryant recently attended the Florida Marine Turtle Permit Holders Annual Meeting, where these figures were released.)
Submitted by AMANDA BRYANT, SCCF Sea Turtle Coordinator
From CaptivaSanibel.Com 2/22/11
This year's sea turtle nesting season will begin on May 1, with Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation staff and volunteers gearing up to cover island beaches.
Last year, many of us spent our spring and summer watching in horror as the Deepwater Horizon Oil rig exploded and the well it serviced pumped barrels upon barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
From April 20 until the well was capped in July, sea turtles were center stage as a poster animal for the disaster. The Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) was responsible for handling the impacts on sea turtles along the Florida shoreline.
Efforts to protect sea turtles began almost immediately. These efforts included on-the-water search and rescue, documentation and collection of sea turtles stranded on or near to shore, nesting beach protection and observation during cleanup activities.
Approximately 450 sea turtles were rescued at sea, all but five alive. Less than one percent of these turtles died during rehabilitation. Releases of rehabilitated turtles into oil-free waters began as soon as the well was capped. To date, all have been released, with the exception of 40 sea turtles that are still receiving care.
On the beaches of the panhandle, Florida's only oiled beaches, emerging hatchlings faced almost certain death. The decision was made to relocate nests at 47-49 days of incubation (about one week before they would hatch) and release the hatchlings on the eastern coast of the state.
Eggs from 274 nests were carefully dug up and removed from the nest. They were placed in coolers with damp sand from the nest and transported near Cape Canaveral. The FedEx trucks used to move the eggs were temperature controlled, air-cushioned and equipped with special pallets to hold the coolers in place.
Every effort was made to reduce or eliminate unnecessarily jarring. At this stage in development, eggs are very vulnerable to movement, which can result in the death of the hatchling.
The coolers were kept in a temperature controlled facility and monitored until the nests hatched. Hatchlings were then released at night on nearby beaches.
In all, this massive undertaking unearthed and relocated 28,568 eggs and released 14,796 hatchlings. The hatch success (percentage of eggs that hatch out of the total number of eggs) for relocated nests matched that of nests left to hatch without assistance.
(Bryant recently attended the Florida Marine Turtle Permit Holders Annual Meeting, where these figures were released.)
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Oil in Gulf of Mexico (Via Herp Digest)
Oil in Gulf of Mexico: Biologists Cite Need for Critical Data to Determine Ecological Consequences
ScienceDaily (Feb. 4, 2011) - Twenty years after biologists attempted to determine the ecological damages to marine life from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, scientists dealing with the BP disaster find themselves with the same problem: the lack of critical data to determine the ecological consequences of human-induced environmental disasters, a University of Florida researcher said.
Writing in the Feb. 4 issue of the journal Science, Karen A. Bjorndal, a University of Florida biology professor and director of the Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research, and other biologists said the United States needs "strategic national research plans for key marine species and ecosystems based on evaluation of cause and effect and on integrated monitoring of abundance and demographic traits."
"It is sad to see that we are in the same place now," said Bjorndal, adding that not much has changed since the Valdez oil spill when it comes to getting the data needed to assess and restore a marine ecosystem after an environmental disaster. She hopes it will provide an impetus for action.
"We know how to create these research plans -- what is needed now is the political will and leadership to do so," she wrote.
"Achieving mandated recovery goals depends on understanding both population trends and the demographic processes that drive those trends," Bjorndal's article states.
Her team argues it "is not too late to invest funds from BP to support teams of experts to develop effective strategic plans that identify, prioritize and provide methodologies for collecting essential data."
The team identified seven elements that need to be included in most of the plans.
"In the wake of the BP oil spill, the need for this policy shift is as clear as it is compelling. The largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history should provide the impetus and opportunity to effect this policy shift." Bjorndal wrote in her article.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Florida. .
Journal Reference:
K. A. Bjorndal, B. W. Bowen, M. Chaloupka, L. B. Crowder, S. S. Heppell, C. M. Jones, M. E. Lutcavage, D. Policansky, A. R. Solow, B. E. Witherington. Better Science Needed for Restoration in the Gulf of Mexico. Science, 2011; 331 (6017): 537
ScienceDaily (Feb. 4, 2011) - Twenty years after biologists attempted to determine the ecological damages to marine life from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, scientists dealing with the BP disaster find themselves with the same problem: the lack of critical data to determine the ecological consequences of human-induced environmental disasters, a University of Florida researcher said.
Writing in the Feb. 4 issue of the journal Science, Karen A. Bjorndal, a University of Florida biology professor and director of the Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research, and other biologists said the United States needs "strategic national research plans for key marine species and ecosystems based on evaluation of cause and effect and on integrated monitoring of abundance and demographic traits."
"It is sad to see that we are in the same place now," said Bjorndal, adding that not much has changed since the Valdez oil spill when it comes to getting the data needed to assess and restore a marine ecosystem after an environmental disaster. She hopes it will provide an impetus for action.
"We know how to create these research plans -- what is needed now is the political will and leadership to do so," she wrote.
"Achieving mandated recovery goals depends on understanding both population trends and the demographic processes that drive those trends," Bjorndal's article states.
Her team argues it "is not too late to invest funds from BP to support teams of experts to develop effective strategic plans that identify, prioritize and provide methodologies for collecting essential data."
The team identified seven elements that need to be included in most of the plans.
"In the wake of the BP oil spill, the need for this policy shift is as clear as it is compelling. The largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history should provide the impetus and opportunity to effect this policy shift." Bjorndal wrote in her article.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Florida. .
Journal Reference:
K. A. Bjorndal, B. W. Bowen, M. Chaloupka, L. B. Crowder, S. S. Heppell, C. M. Jones, M. E. Lutcavage, D. Policansky, A. R. Solow, B. E. Witherington. Better Science Needed for Restoration in the Gulf of Mexico. Science, 2011; 331 (6017): 537
Monday, November 15, 2010
Coral near Deep Water Horizon well is dead or dying
Thought to be have damaged by a plume of toxins
November 2010: Communities of dead and dying corals and starfish-like brittle stars have been discovered near the Deep Water Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico.
On a research ship in the Gulf of Mexico, seven miles south-west of the site of the Deep Water Horizon oil-spill, a team of scientists discovered a community of corals that includes many recently dead colonies and others that clearly are dying.
‘We discovered a community of coral that has been impacted fairly recently by something very toxic,' said the chief scientist on the cruise, Charles Fisher, a professor of biology at Penn State University and a member of the research team that selected the site for study.
Fisher said the research team, on a trip at the beginning of this month, encountered a colony of the hard coral species Madrepora that appeared to be unhealthy at a depth of 1,400 meters.
‘Although some branches of the coral colony appeared normal, other branches clearly were covered in a brown material, apparently sloughing tissue, and were producing abundant mucous,' Fisher said. The scientists sampled pieces of this hard coral and of its immediate environment then, about 400 meters away, they found a seriously stricken community of soft corals.
‘Many colonies appeared recently dead'
‘Within minutes it was evident that this site was unlike any others that we have seen over the course of hundreds of hours of studying the deep corals in the Gulf of Mexico over the last decade with remotely-operated-vehicles (ROVs) and submersibles,' Fisher said. ‘We found that extensive portions of most of the coral colonies were either recently dead or were dying. Most of the soft coral sea fans had extensive areas that were bare of tissue, covered with brown material, and/or had tissue falling off the skeleton.
Many of the colonies appeared recently dead, with no living coral tissue, still covered with decaying material, and also with a notable lack of colonization by other marine life, as would be expected on coral skeletons that had been dead for long periods of time,' Fisher said.
The scientists also found that many of the brittle stars that are the typical symbiotic partners of these types of corals also appeared to be very unhealthy. ‘Many of the dead and dying coral colonies had discoloured and immobile brittle stars - a kind of starfish - still attached,' Fisher said.
The team took a variety of samples that will be analysed for the presence of hydrocarbons and for molecular evidence of genetic damage and physiological stress that could give direct evidence of exposure to oil or dispersants from the Deep Water Horizon disaster. However, Fisher said it is possible that lab results might not be able to provide any new information.
‘For example, a plume of toxic dispersant or oil blowing through this community could have caused damage that resulted in the slow death of the corals without leaving any trace on the sea floor near the corals,' Fisher said.
'We have found a smoking gun'
‘No one yet knows if the signature of whatever toxin killed these corals can be found in their skeletons after the tissue sloughs off. No one even knows if dispersant accumulates in the tissues that it kills.'
‘The compelling evidence that we collected constitutes a smoking gun,' Fisher said. ‘The circumstantial evidence is extremely strong and compelling because we have never seen anything like this - and we have seen a lot; the visual data for recent and ongoing death are crystal clear and consistent over at least 30 colonies; the site is close to the Deep Water Horizon; the research site is at the right depth and direction to have been impacted by a deep-water plume, based on NOAA models and empirical data; and the impact was detected only a few months after the spill was contained.'
http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/deep-sea-corals.html
November 2010: Communities of dead and dying corals and starfish-like brittle stars have been discovered near the Deep Water Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico.
On a research ship in the Gulf of Mexico, seven miles south-west of the site of the Deep Water Horizon oil-spill, a team of scientists discovered a community of corals that includes many recently dead colonies and others that clearly are dying.
‘We discovered a community of coral that has been impacted fairly recently by something very toxic,' said the chief scientist on the cruise, Charles Fisher, a professor of biology at Penn State University and a member of the research team that selected the site for study.
Fisher said the research team, on a trip at the beginning of this month, encountered a colony of the hard coral species Madrepora that appeared to be unhealthy at a depth of 1,400 meters.
‘Although some branches of the coral colony appeared normal, other branches clearly were covered in a brown material, apparently sloughing tissue, and were producing abundant mucous,' Fisher said. The scientists sampled pieces of this hard coral and of its immediate environment then, about 400 meters away, they found a seriously stricken community of soft corals.
‘Many colonies appeared recently dead'
‘Within minutes it was evident that this site was unlike any others that we have seen over the course of hundreds of hours of studying the deep corals in the Gulf of Mexico over the last decade with remotely-operated-vehicles (ROVs) and submersibles,' Fisher said. ‘We found that extensive portions of most of the coral colonies were either recently dead or were dying. Most of the soft coral sea fans had extensive areas that were bare of tissue, covered with brown material, and/or had tissue falling off the skeleton.
Many of the colonies appeared recently dead, with no living coral tissue, still covered with decaying material, and also with a notable lack of colonization by other marine life, as would be expected on coral skeletons that had been dead for long periods of time,' Fisher said.
The scientists also found that many of the brittle stars that are the typical symbiotic partners of these types of corals also appeared to be very unhealthy. ‘Many of the dead and dying coral colonies had discoloured and immobile brittle stars - a kind of starfish - still attached,' Fisher said.
The team took a variety of samples that will be analysed for the presence of hydrocarbons and for molecular evidence of genetic damage and physiological stress that could give direct evidence of exposure to oil or dispersants from the Deep Water Horizon disaster. However, Fisher said it is possible that lab results might not be able to provide any new information.
‘For example, a plume of toxic dispersant or oil blowing through this community could have caused damage that resulted in the slow death of the corals without leaving any trace on the sea floor near the corals,' Fisher said.
'We have found a smoking gun'
‘No one yet knows if the signature of whatever toxin killed these corals can be found in their skeletons after the tissue sloughs off. No one even knows if dispersant accumulates in the tissues that it kills.'
‘The compelling evidence that we collected constitutes a smoking gun,' Fisher said. ‘The circumstantial evidence is extremely strong and compelling because we have never seen anything like this - and we have seen a lot; the visual data for recent and ongoing death are crystal clear and consistent over at least 30 colonies; the site is close to the Deep Water Horizon; the research site is at the right depth and direction to have been impacted by a deep-water plume, based on NOAA models and empirical data; and the impact was detected only a few months after the spill was contained.'
http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/deep-sea-corals.html
Coral near Deep Water Horizon well is dead or dying
Thought to be have damaged by a plume of toxins
November 2010: Communities of dead and dying corals and starfish-like brittle stars have been discovered near the Deep Water Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico.
On a research ship in the Gulf of Mexico, seven miles south-west of the site of the Deep Water Horizon oil-spill, a team of scientists discovered a community of corals that includes many recently dead colonies and others that clearly are dying.
‘We discovered a community of coral that has been impacted fairly recently by something very toxic,' said the chief scientist on the cruise, Charles Fisher, a professor of biology at Penn State University and a member of the research team that selected the site for study.
Fisher said the research team, on a trip at the beginning of this month, encountered a colony of the hard coral species Madrepora that appeared to be unhealthy at a depth of 1,400 meters.
‘Although some branches of the coral colony appeared normal, other branches clearly were covered in a brown material, apparently sloughing tissue, and were producing abundant mucous,' Fisher said. The scientists sampled pieces of this hard coral and of its immediate environment then, about 400 meters away, they found a seriously stricken community of soft corals.
‘Many colonies appeared recently dead'
‘Within minutes it was evident that this site was unlike any others that we have seen over the course of hundreds of hours of studying the deep corals in the Gulf of Mexico over the last decade with remotely-operated-vehicles (ROVs) and submersibles,' Fisher said. ‘We found that extensive portions of most of the coral colonies were either recently dead or were dying. Most of the soft coral sea fans had extensive areas that were bare of tissue, covered with brown material, and/or had tissue falling off the skeleton.
Many of the colonies appeared recently dead, with no living coral tissue, still covered with decaying material, and also with a notable lack of colonization by other marine life, as would be expected on coral skeletons that had been dead for long periods of time,' Fisher said.
The scientists also found that many of the brittle stars that are the typical symbiotic partners of these types of corals also appeared to be very unhealthy. ‘Many of the dead and dying coral colonies had discoloured and immobile brittle stars - a kind of starfish - still attached,' Fisher said.
The team took a variety of samples that will be analysed for the presence of hydrocarbons and for molecular evidence of genetic damage and physiological stress that could give direct evidence of exposure to oil or dispersants from the Deep Water Horizon disaster. However, Fisher said it is possible that lab results might not be able to provide any new information.
‘For example, a plume of toxic dispersant or oil blowing through this community could have caused damage that resulted in the slow death of the corals without leaving any trace on the sea floor near the corals,' Fisher said.
'We have found a smoking gun'
‘No one yet knows if the signature of whatever toxin killed these corals can be found in their skeletons after the tissue sloughs off. No one even knows if dispersant accumulates in the tissues that it kills.'
‘The compelling evidence that we collected constitutes a smoking gun,' Fisher said. ‘The circumstantial evidence is extremely strong and compelling because we have never seen anything like this - and we have seen a lot; the visual data for recent and ongoing death are crystal clear and consistent over at least 30 colonies; the site is close to the Deep Water Horizon; the research site is at the right depth and direction to have been impacted by a deep-water plume, based on NOAA models and empirical data; and the impact was detected only a few months after the spill was contained.'
http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/deep-sea-corals.html
November 2010: Communities of dead and dying corals and starfish-like brittle stars have been discovered near the Deep Water Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico.
On a research ship in the Gulf of Mexico, seven miles south-west of the site of the Deep Water Horizon oil-spill, a team of scientists discovered a community of corals that includes many recently dead colonies and others that clearly are dying.
‘We discovered a community of coral that has been impacted fairly recently by something very toxic,' said the chief scientist on the cruise, Charles Fisher, a professor of biology at Penn State University and a member of the research team that selected the site for study.
Fisher said the research team, on a trip at the beginning of this month, encountered a colony of the hard coral species Madrepora that appeared to be unhealthy at a depth of 1,400 meters.
‘Although some branches of the coral colony appeared normal, other branches clearly were covered in a brown material, apparently sloughing tissue, and were producing abundant mucous,' Fisher said. The scientists sampled pieces of this hard coral and of its immediate environment then, about 400 meters away, they found a seriously stricken community of soft corals.
‘Many colonies appeared recently dead'
‘Within minutes it was evident that this site was unlike any others that we have seen over the course of hundreds of hours of studying the deep corals in the Gulf of Mexico over the last decade with remotely-operated-vehicles (ROVs) and submersibles,' Fisher said. ‘We found that extensive portions of most of the coral colonies were either recently dead or were dying. Most of the soft coral sea fans had extensive areas that were bare of tissue, covered with brown material, and/or had tissue falling off the skeleton.
Many of the colonies appeared recently dead, with no living coral tissue, still covered with decaying material, and also with a notable lack of colonization by other marine life, as would be expected on coral skeletons that had been dead for long periods of time,' Fisher said.
The scientists also found that many of the brittle stars that are the typical symbiotic partners of these types of corals also appeared to be very unhealthy. ‘Many of the dead and dying coral colonies had discoloured and immobile brittle stars - a kind of starfish - still attached,' Fisher said.
The team took a variety of samples that will be analysed for the presence of hydrocarbons and for molecular evidence of genetic damage and physiological stress that could give direct evidence of exposure to oil or dispersants from the Deep Water Horizon disaster. However, Fisher said it is possible that lab results might not be able to provide any new information.
‘For example, a plume of toxic dispersant or oil blowing through this community could have caused damage that resulted in the slow death of the corals without leaving any trace on the sea floor near the corals,' Fisher said.
'We have found a smoking gun'
‘No one yet knows if the signature of whatever toxin killed these corals can be found in their skeletons after the tissue sloughs off. No one even knows if dispersant accumulates in the tissues that it kills.'
‘The compelling evidence that we collected constitutes a smoking gun,' Fisher said. ‘The circumstantial evidence is extremely strong and compelling because we have never seen anything like this - and we have seen a lot; the visual data for recent and ongoing death are crystal clear and consistent over at least 30 colonies; the site is close to the Deep Water Horizon; the research site is at the right depth and direction to have been impacted by a deep-water plume, based on NOAA models and empirical data; and the impact was detected only a few months after the spill was contained.'
http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/deep-sea-corals.html
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The Oil and the Turtles, (Via Herp Digest)
The Oil and the Turtles,
By Alex Shoumatoff Vanity Fair Web Exclusive
Letter From The Gulf , September 21, 2010
Of all the devastation in the Gulf of Mexico caused by the Deepwater Horizon blowout, no one single species is being directly affected as much as the critically endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle. Only 8,000 adult females nested in 2009, and the adult males are thought to be even fewer. Those that remain have been hit hard. Most of the surviving juveniles inhabit the waters 20 to 30 miles from shore, feeding and growing in the same currents and gyres that collected the bulk of the four million barrels spewed by the now capped well. There were confirmed reports of ridleys being burned alive in the pools of corralled, concentrated oil that BP had been burning off during the spill.
Almost every gravid female ridley lays her eggs on a single beach in Tamaulipas, Mexico, coming ashore in a unique mass-nesting event known as the arribada-the arrival. Kemp's cousins in the Pacific, the Olive ridleys, also do this, but the other five sea-turtle species (and a small percentage of ridleys) are solitary nesters and don't always return to the same place. The arribadas happen at Rancho Nuevo-a beach 900 miles southwest from the blowout. It's only 200 miles south of Brownsville, Texas. Not a bad drive, only I'm told it's too dangerous because three warring factions of narcotrafficantes-the Gulf cartel, the Zetas (former hit men of the cartel), and a local mafia called La Maña-have been having shoot-outs along it. Instead, I fly to Tampico, the sleepy port where the opening scene of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was filmed, which is 60 miles south of Rancho Nuevo. (Not that Tampico is immune to the violence; the week before I arrive, the naked bodies of five po!
licemen were found hanging from one of its bridges, I am told by a fellow gringo who narrowly escaped being shaken down at one of the narcos' impromptu roadblocks right in the city.) I'm met at the airport by two people from the federal agency that manages Mexico's protected areas, and they whisk me to the nearby Hampton Inn for the night.
In the morning we are driven to the Rancho Nuevo beach reserve by its director Dr. Gloria Tavera. Its 20 miles of wild white sand are patrolled three times a day by guards on A.T.V.'s, and 20 times a day or more during nesting season. Dr. Tavera tells me that the arribadas are over, but that the white ping-pong-ball-size eggs, having incubated for 45 days, are starting to hatch.
Sure enough, at five a.m. on the second morning, we jump onto four-wheelers and bomb down to the South Corral, four miles from the camp, where dozens of the 800 nests from the June 3 arribada are erupting with hatchlings, about 90 per nest. The babies are three inches long and look like black rubber-toy turtles. They crawl down to the surf and, as soon as they hit the water, their angled forelimbs begin to flap wildly. Then they're pulled into the breaking waves by the undertow and are off, on their own, into the great unknown. Guided by pure instinct, fueled by the remaining yoke in their waterproof belly sacs, they will swim straight out for five days or so until they hit the mats of sargassum, a golden-brown, free-floating marine algae (these lines of sargassum are often only 20 or 30 feet wide, but can extend for miles, and offer cover and food for the hatchlings). We don't know how many hatchlings will survive to adulthood, but the most common ballpark estimate is only !
one in a thousand. Many will be picked off by sharks, many other species of fish, dolphins, and sea birds. Everything wants to eat them. But many more than usual will die when the clockwise currents of the Gulf carry the turtles directly up into the area contaminated by the Deepwater Horizon spill. "The internal damage from the hydrocarbons to the organs of the ridleys could make them unable to reproduce," Dr. Tavera tells me. "That would mean extinction. But nobody knows."
Her fears could be well founded. A new study of shorebirds finds that the ingestion of only a small amount of oil can cause lasting changes in brain function and behavior. The males' pheromones are inhibited so they stop doing their mating behavior.
Conservationists rallied round the ridley in 1978, when human predation left them hanging by a thread. Poaching of the eggs-rich and delicious, they had long been part of the local diet-was stopped, and in l986, when only 600 females came back to nest at Rancho Nuevo, an American law was passed requiring shrimp fishermen meeting certain criteria to equip their nets with escape holes for turtles known as TEDs (turtle excluder devices). For a time, it was working. In 2009 there were 21,000 nests. Six thousand females came ashore over a two-day period that May, the biggest arribada in the 40-year history of the conservation program at Rancho Nuevo. But this year there were only 13,115 nests, the result of a record cold winter followed by three months of red tide, a toxic algae bloom that prevented the females from being able to access the beach. Then, on June 30, the beach was slammed by Hurricane Alex, and a thousand more nests were lost.
Barbara Schroeder, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association in Silver Spring, Maryland, thinks the spill is unlikely to spell the end of the ridley but it "is definitely a setback to the turtle's recovery. We are going to have to enhance our efforts to get the species back on the trajectory it was on, and we will need to re-look at the most significant human threats-bycatch from shrimp and other trawlers and gill nets, hook and line-fishing, and boat strikes."
That the four million barrels of oil seem to be dissipating more quickly than expected does not mean the turtles will no longer be affected. The oil below the surface concerns many experts.
Kemp's ridleys in nearshore areas feed on the bottom, which means they have to dive through the oil. What's more, this relatively quick disappearance of the large oil pools was achieved because BP dumped nearly two million gallons of the highly toxic chemical dispersant Corexit into the Gulf-in some cases, without the necessary approval of the Environmental Protection Agency. Corexit, used to break up large pools of oil in water, is an alarmingly unknown entity.
Scientists in Louisiana are just beginning to study its effects on marine life in the Gulf. They've discovered high levels of it in blue-crab larvae, which suggests the poison may have already entered the food chain, just in time for the start of Louisiana's shrimp season. Blue crabs are the ridley's favorite food.
Ed Clark, the president of the Wildlife Center of Virginia, who has been treating oiled wildlife for 28 years, tells me that the dispersant is like "putting a coat of new paint on a junk car." The official marine-life casualty numbers, Clark maintains, are grossly underestimated. "If they're saying 400 turtles were killed, I'd bet my house it's more like 4,000," he says.
"BP is responsible for the damages"-up to $50,000 per turtle, as per the Endangered Species Act-"but it is incumbent on the government to prove what [the damages] are," says Clark. He has heard rumors that the cleanup crews on Grand Isle, Louisiana, which are mainly made up of prisoners, were bagging dead turtles and birds in plastic bags marked for incineration because no one from Fish and Wildlife responded to their calls. The F.W.S. agents were mainly focused on federally owned coastline. It may go beyond unresponsive government agencies. Clark also heard rumors that BP was deliberately burning oiled sargassum, even though living sea turtles were known to be still in the floating mats.
So the crisis isn't over, as BP and the government would have you believe. It's only beginning. The biological consequences of this disaster will be felt for years, over generations, like Chernobyl. And we may never know how bad it was.
By Alex Shoumatoff Vanity Fair Web Exclusive
Letter From The Gulf , September 21, 2010
Of all the devastation in the Gulf of Mexico caused by the Deepwater Horizon blowout, no one single species is being directly affected as much as the critically endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle. Only 8,000 adult females nested in 2009, and the adult males are thought to be even fewer. Those that remain have been hit hard. Most of the surviving juveniles inhabit the waters 20 to 30 miles from shore, feeding and growing in the same currents and gyres that collected the bulk of the four million barrels spewed by the now capped well. There were confirmed reports of ridleys being burned alive in the pools of corralled, concentrated oil that BP had been burning off during the spill.
Almost every gravid female ridley lays her eggs on a single beach in Tamaulipas, Mexico, coming ashore in a unique mass-nesting event known as the arribada-the arrival. Kemp's cousins in the Pacific, the Olive ridleys, also do this, but the other five sea-turtle species (and a small percentage of ridleys) are solitary nesters and don't always return to the same place. The arribadas happen at Rancho Nuevo-a beach 900 miles southwest from the blowout. It's only 200 miles south of Brownsville, Texas. Not a bad drive, only I'm told it's too dangerous because three warring factions of narcotrafficantes-the Gulf cartel, the Zetas (former hit men of the cartel), and a local mafia called La Maña-have been having shoot-outs along it. Instead, I fly to Tampico, the sleepy port where the opening scene of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was filmed, which is 60 miles south of Rancho Nuevo. (Not that Tampico is immune to the violence; the week before I arrive, the naked bodies of five po!
licemen were found hanging from one of its bridges, I am told by a fellow gringo who narrowly escaped being shaken down at one of the narcos' impromptu roadblocks right in the city.) I'm met at the airport by two people from the federal agency that manages Mexico's protected areas, and they whisk me to the nearby Hampton Inn for the night.
In the morning we are driven to the Rancho Nuevo beach reserve by its director Dr. Gloria Tavera. Its 20 miles of wild white sand are patrolled three times a day by guards on A.T.V.'s, and 20 times a day or more during nesting season. Dr. Tavera tells me that the arribadas are over, but that the white ping-pong-ball-size eggs, having incubated for 45 days, are starting to hatch.
Sure enough, at five a.m. on the second morning, we jump onto four-wheelers and bomb down to the South Corral, four miles from the camp, where dozens of the 800 nests from the June 3 arribada are erupting with hatchlings, about 90 per nest. The babies are three inches long and look like black rubber-toy turtles. They crawl down to the surf and, as soon as they hit the water, their angled forelimbs begin to flap wildly. Then they're pulled into the breaking waves by the undertow and are off, on their own, into the great unknown. Guided by pure instinct, fueled by the remaining yoke in their waterproof belly sacs, they will swim straight out for five days or so until they hit the mats of sargassum, a golden-brown, free-floating marine algae (these lines of sargassum are often only 20 or 30 feet wide, but can extend for miles, and offer cover and food for the hatchlings). We don't know how many hatchlings will survive to adulthood, but the most common ballpark estimate is only !
one in a thousand. Many will be picked off by sharks, many other species of fish, dolphins, and sea birds. Everything wants to eat them. But many more than usual will die when the clockwise currents of the Gulf carry the turtles directly up into the area contaminated by the Deepwater Horizon spill. "The internal damage from the hydrocarbons to the organs of the ridleys could make them unable to reproduce," Dr. Tavera tells me. "That would mean extinction. But nobody knows."
Her fears could be well founded. A new study of shorebirds finds that the ingestion of only a small amount of oil can cause lasting changes in brain function and behavior. The males' pheromones are inhibited so they stop doing their mating behavior.
Conservationists rallied round the ridley in 1978, when human predation left them hanging by a thread. Poaching of the eggs-rich and delicious, they had long been part of the local diet-was stopped, and in l986, when only 600 females came back to nest at Rancho Nuevo, an American law was passed requiring shrimp fishermen meeting certain criteria to equip their nets with escape holes for turtles known as TEDs (turtle excluder devices). For a time, it was working. In 2009 there were 21,000 nests. Six thousand females came ashore over a two-day period that May, the biggest arribada in the 40-year history of the conservation program at Rancho Nuevo. But this year there were only 13,115 nests, the result of a record cold winter followed by three months of red tide, a toxic algae bloom that prevented the females from being able to access the beach. Then, on June 30, the beach was slammed by Hurricane Alex, and a thousand more nests were lost.
Barbara Schroeder, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association in Silver Spring, Maryland, thinks the spill is unlikely to spell the end of the ridley but it "is definitely a setback to the turtle's recovery. We are going to have to enhance our efforts to get the species back on the trajectory it was on, and we will need to re-look at the most significant human threats-bycatch from shrimp and other trawlers and gill nets, hook and line-fishing, and boat strikes."
That the four million barrels of oil seem to be dissipating more quickly than expected does not mean the turtles will no longer be affected. The oil below the surface concerns many experts.
Kemp's ridleys in nearshore areas feed on the bottom, which means they have to dive through the oil. What's more, this relatively quick disappearance of the large oil pools was achieved because BP dumped nearly two million gallons of the highly toxic chemical dispersant Corexit into the Gulf-in some cases, without the necessary approval of the Environmental Protection Agency. Corexit, used to break up large pools of oil in water, is an alarmingly unknown entity.
Scientists in Louisiana are just beginning to study its effects on marine life in the Gulf. They've discovered high levels of it in blue-crab larvae, which suggests the poison may have already entered the food chain, just in time for the start of Louisiana's shrimp season. Blue crabs are the ridley's favorite food.
Ed Clark, the president of the Wildlife Center of Virginia, who has been treating oiled wildlife for 28 years, tells me that the dispersant is like "putting a coat of new paint on a junk car." The official marine-life casualty numbers, Clark maintains, are grossly underestimated. "If they're saying 400 turtles were killed, I'd bet my house it's more like 4,000," he says.
"BP is responsible for the damages"-up to $50,000 per turtle, as per the Endangered Species Act-"but it is incumbent on the government to prove what [the damages] are," says Clark. He has heard rumors that the cleanup crews on Grand Isle, Louisiana, which are mainly made up of prisoners, were bagging dead turtles and birds in plastic bags marked for incineration because no one from Fish and Wildlife responded to their calls. The F.W.S. agents were mainly focused on federally owned coastline. It may go beyond unresponsive government agencies. Clark also heard rumors that BP was deliberately burning oiled sargassum, even though living sea turtles were known to be still in the floating mats.
So the crisis isn't over, as BP and the government would have you believe. It's only beginning. The biological consequences of this disaster will be felt for years, over generations, like Chernobyl. And we may never know how bad it was.
The Oil and the Turtles, (Via Herp Digest)
The Oil and the Turtles,
By Alex Shoumatoff Vanity Fair Web Exclusive
Letter From The Gulf , September 21, 2010
Of all the devastation in the Gulf of Mexico caused by the Deepwater Horizon blowout, no one single species is being directly affected as much as the critically endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle. Only 8,000 adult females nested in 2009, and the adult males are thought to be even fewer. Those that remain have been hit hard. Most of the surviving juveniles inhabit the waters 20 to 30 miles from shore, feeding and growing in the same currents and gyres that collected the bulk of the four million barrels spewed by the now capped well. There were confirmed reports of ridleys being burned alive in the pools of corralled, concentrated oil that BP had been burning off during the spill.
Almost every gravid female ridley lays her eggs on a single beach in Tamaulipas, Mexico, coming ashore in a unique mass-nesting event known as the arribada-the arrival. Kemp's cousins in the Pacific, the Olive ridleys, also do this, but the other five sea-turtle species (and a small percentage of ridleys) are solitary nesters and don't always return to the same place. The arribadas happen at Rancho Nuevo-a beach 900 miles southwest from the blowout. It's only 200 miles south of Brownsville, Texas. Not a bad drive, only I'm told it's too dangerous because three warring factions of narcotrafficantes-the Gulf cartel, the Zetas (former hit men of the cartel), and a local mafia called La Maña-have been having shoot-outs along it. Instead, I fly to Tampico, the sleepy port where the opening scene of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was filmed, which is 60 miles south of Rancho Nuevo. (Not that Tampico is immune to the violence; the week before I arrive, the naked bodies of five po!
licemen were found hanging from one of its bridges, I am told by a fellow gringo who narrowly escaped being shaken down at one of the narcos' impromptu roadblocks right in the city.) I'm met at the airport by two people from the federal agency that manages Mexico's protected areas, and they whisk me to the nearby Hampton Inn for the night.
In the morning we are driven to the Rancho Nuevo beach reserve by its director Dr. Gloria Tavera. Its 20 miles of wild white sand are patrolled three times a day by guards on A.T.V.'s, and 20 times a day or more during nesting season. Dr. Tavera tells me that the arribadas are over, but that the white ping-pong-ball-size eggs, having incubated for 45 days, are starting to hatch.
Sure enough, at five a.m. on the second morning, we jump onto four-wheelers and bomb down to the South Corral, four miles from the camp, where dozens of the 800 nests from the June 3 arribada are erupting with hatchlings, about 90 per nest. The babies are three inches long and look like black rubber-toy turtles. They crawl down to the surf and, as soon as they hit the water, their angled forelimbs begin to flap wildly. Then they're pulled into the breaking waves by the undertow and are off, on their own, into the great unknown. Guided by pure instinct, fueled by the remaining yoke in their waterproof belly sacs, they will swim straight out for five days or so until they hit the mats of sargassum, a golden-brown, free-floating marine algae (these lines of sargassum are often only 20 or 30 feet wide, but can extend for miles, and offer cover and food for the hatchlings). We don't know how many hatchlings will survive to adulthood, but the most common ballpark estimate is only !
one in a thousand. Many will be picked off by sharks, many other species of fish, dolphins, and sea birds. Everything wants to eat them. But many more than usual will die when the clockwise currents of the Gulf carry the turtles directly up into the area contaminated by the Deepwater Horizon spill. "The internal damage from the hydrocarbons to the organs of the ridleys could make them unable to reproduce," Dr. Tavera tells me. "That would mean extinction. But nobody knows."
Her fears could be well founded. A new study of shorebirds finds that the ingestion of only a small amount of oil can cause lasting changes in brain function and behavior. The males' pheromones are inhibited so they stop doing their mating behavior.
Conservationists rallied round the ridley in 1978, when human predation left them hanging by a thread. Poaching of the eggs-rich and delicious, they had long been part of the local diet-was stopped, and in l986, when only 600 females came back to nest at Rancho Nuevo, an American law was passed requiring shrimp fishermen meeting certain criteria to equip their nets with escape holes for turtles known as TEDs (turtle excluder devices). For a time, it was working. In 2009 there were 21,000 nests. Six thousand females came ashore over a two-day period that May, the biggest arribada in the 40-year history of the conservation program at Rancho Nuevo. But this year there were only 13,115 nests, the result of a record cold winter followed by three months of red tide, a toxic algae bloom that prevented the females from being able to access the beach. Then, on June 30, the beach was slammed by Hurricane Alex, and a thousand more nests were lost.
Barbara Schroeder, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association in Silver Spring, Maryland, thinks the spill is unlikely to spell the end of the ridley but it "is definitely a setback to the turtle's recovery. We are going to have to enhance our efforts to get the species back on the trajectory it was on, and we will need to re-look at the most significant human threats-bycatch from shrimp and other trawlers and gill nets, hook and line-fishing, and boat strikes."
That the four million barrels of oil seem to be dissipating more quickly than expected does not mean the turtles will no longer be affected. The oil below the surface concerns many experts.
Kemp's ridleys in nearshore areas feed on the bottom, which means they have to dive through the oil. What's more, this relatively quick disappearance of the large oil pools was achieved because BP dumped nearly two million gallons of the highly toxic chemical dispersant Corexit into the Gulf-in some cases, without the necessary approval of the Environmental Protection Agency. Corexit, used to break up large pools of oil in water, is an alarmingly unknown entity.
Scientists in Louisiana are just beginning to study its effects on marine life in the Gulf. They've discovered high levels of it in blue-crab larvae, which suggests the poison may have already entered the food chain, just in time for the start of Louisiana's shrimp season. Blue crabs are the ridley's favorite food.
Ed Clark, the president of the Wildlife Center of Virginia, who has been treating oiled wildlife for 28 years, tells me that the dispersant is like "putting a coat of new paint on a junk car." The official marine-life casualty numbers, Clark maintains, are grossly underestimated. "If they're saying 400 turtles were killed, I'd bet my house it's more like 4,000," he says.
"BP is responsible for the damages"-up to $50,000 per turtle, as per the Endangered Species Act-"but it is incumbent on the government to prove what [the damages] are," says Clark. He has heard rumors that the cleanup crews on Grand Isle, Louisiana, which are mainly made up of prisoners, were bagging dead turtles and birds in plastic bags marked for incineration because no one from Fish and Wildlife responded to their calls. The F.W.S. agents were mainly focused on federally owned coastline. It may go beyond unresponsive government agencies. Clark also heard rumors that BP was deliberately burning oiled sargassum, even though living sea turtles were known to be still in the floating mats.
So the crisis isn't over, as BP and the government would have you believe. It's only beginning. The biological consequences of this disaster will be felt for years, over generations, like Chernobyl. And we may never know how bad it was.
By Alex Shoumatoff Vanity Fair Web Exclusive
Letter From The Gulf , September 21, 2010
Of all the devastation in the Gulf of Mexico caused by the Deepwater Horizon blowout, no one single species is being directly affected as much as the critically endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle. Only 8,000 adult females nested in 2009, and the adult males are thought to be even fewer. Those that remain have been hit hard. Most of the surviving juveniles inhabit the waters 20 to 30 miles from shore, feeding and growing in the same currents and gyres that collected the bulk of the four million barrels spewed by the now capped well. There were confirmed reports of ridleys being burned alive in the pools of corralled, concentrated oil that BP had been burning off during the spill.
Almost every gravid female ridley lays her eggs on a single beach in Tamaulipas, Mexico, coming ashore in a unique mass-nesting event known as the arribada-the arrival. Kemp's cousins in the Pacific, the Olive ridleys, also do this, but the other five sea-turtle species (and a small percentage of ridleys) are solitary nesters and don't always return to the same place. The arribadas happen at Rancho Nuevo-a beach 900 miles southwest from the blowout. It's only 200 miles south of Brownsville, Texas. Not a bad drive, only I'm told it's too dangerous because three warring factions of narcotrafficantes-the Gulf cartel, the Zetas (former hit men of the cartel), and a local mafia called La Maña-have been having shoot-outs along it. Instead, I fly to Tampico, the sleepy port where the opening scene of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was filmed, which is 60 miles south of Rancho Nuevo. (Not that Tampico is immune to the violence; the week before I arrive, the naked bodies of five po!
licemen were found hanging from one of its bridges, I am told by a fellow gringo who narrowly escaped being shaken down at one of the narcos' impromptu roadblocks right in the city.) I'm met at the airport by two people from the federal agency that manages Mexico's protected areas, and they whisk me to the nearby Hampton Inn for the night.
In the morning we are driven to the Rancho Nuevo beach reserve by its director Dr. Gloria Tavera. Its 20 miles of wild white sand are patrolled three times a day by guards on A.T.V.'s, and 20 times a day or more during nesting season. Dr. Tavera tells me that the arribadas are over, but that the white ping-pong-ball-size eggs, having incubated for 45 days, are starting to hatch.
Sure enough, at five a.m. on the second morning, we jump onto four-wheelers and bomb down to the South Corral, four miles from the camp, where dozens of the 800 nests from the June 3 arribada are erupting with hatchlings, about 90 per nest. The babies are three inches long and look like black rubber-toy turtles. They crawl down to the surf and, as soon as they hit the water, their angled forelimbs begin to flap wildly. Then they're pulled into the breaking waves by the undertow and are off, on their own, into the great unknown. Guided by pure instinct, fueled by the remaining yoke in their waterproof belly sacs, they will swim straight out for five days or so until they hit the mats of sargassum, a golden-brown, free-floating marine algae (these lines of sargassum are often only 20 or 30 feet wide, but can extend for miles, and offer cover and food for the hatchlings). We don't know how many hatchlings will survive to adulthood, but the most common ballpark estimate is only !
one in a thousand. Many will be picked off by sharks, many other species of fish, dolphins, and sea birds. Everything wants to eat them. But many more than usual will die when the clockwise currents of the Gulf carry the turtles directly up into the area contaminated by the Deepwater Horizon spill. "The internal damage from the hydrocarbons to the organs of the ridleys could make them unable to reproduce," Dr. Tavera tells me. "That would mean extinction. But nobody knows."
Her fears could be well founded. A new study of shorebirds finds that the ingestion of only a small amount of oil can cause lasting changes in brain function and behavior. The males' pheromones are inhibited so they stop doing their mating behavior.
Conservationists rallied round the ridley in 1978, when human predation left them hanging by a thread. Poaching of the eggs-rich and delicious, they had long been part of the local diet-was stopped, and in l986, when only 600 females came back to nest at Rancho Nuevo, an American law was passed requiring shrimp fishermen meeting certain criteria to equip their nets with escape holes for turtles known as TEDs (turtle excluder devices). For a time, it was working. In 2009 there were 21,000 nests. Six thousand females came ashore over a two-day period that May, the biggest arribada in the 40-year history of the conservation program at Rancho Nuevo. But this year there were only 13,115 nests, the result of a record cold winter followed by three months of red tide, a toxic algae bloom that prevented the females from being able to access the beach. Then, on June 30, the beach was slammed by Hurricane Alex, and a thousand more nests were lost.
Barbara Schroeder, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association in Silver Spring, Maryland, thinks the spill is unlikely to spell the end of the ridley but it "is definitely a setback to the turtle's recovery. We are going to have to enhance our efforts to get the species back on the trajectory it was on, and we will need to re-look at the most significant human threats-bycatch from shrimp and other trawlers and gill nets, hook and line-fishing, and boat strikes."
That the four million barrels of oil seem to be dissipating more quickly than expected does not mean the turtles will no longer be affected. The oil below the surface concerns many experts.
Kemp's ridleys in nearshore areas feed on the bottom, which means they have to dive through the oil. What's more, this relatively quick disappearance of the large oil pools was achieved because BP dumped nearly two million gallons of the highly toxic chemical dispersant Corexit into the Gulf-in some cases, without the necessary approval of the Environmental Protection Agency. Corexit, used to break up large pools of oil in water, is an alarmingly unknown entity.
Scientists in Louisiana are just beginning to study its effects on marine life in the Gulf. They've discovered high levels of it in blue-crab larvae, which suggests the poison may have already entered the food chain, just in time for the start of Louisiana's shrimp season. Blue crabs are the ridley's favorite food.
Ed Clark, the president of the Wildlife Center of Virginia, who has been treating oiled wildlife for 28 years, tells me that the dispersant is like "putting a coat of new paint on a junk car." The official marine-life casualty numbers, Clark maintains, are grossly underestimated. "If they're saying 400 turtles were killed, I'd bet my house it's more like 4,000," he says.
"BP is responsible for the damages"-up to $50,000 per turtle, as per the Endangered Species Act-"but it is incumbent on the government to prove what [the damages] are," says Clark. He has heard rumors that the cleanup crews on Grand Isle, Louisiana, which are mainly made up of prisoners, were bagging dead turtles and birds in plastic bags marked for incineration because no one from Fish and Wildlife responded to their calls. The F.W.S. agents were mainly focused on federally owned coastline. It may go beyond unresponsive government agencies. Clark also heard rumors that BP was deliberately burning oiled sargassum, even though living sea turtles were known to be still in the floating mats.
So the crisis isn't over, as BP and the government would have you believe. It's only beginning. The biological consequences of this disaster will be felt for years, over generations, like Chernobyl. And we may never know how bad it was.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Massive oil plume discovered in the Gulf (via HerpDigest)
Massive oil plume discovered in the Gulf
mongabay.com, August 19, 2010
Researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have detected a plume of hydrocarbons that is at least 22 miles long and more than 3,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, a result of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, reports a study published in Science.
The 1.2-mile-wide, 650-foot-high plume of trapped hydrocarbons provides a clue on where all the oil has gone as oil slicks on the surface disappear.
"These results indicate that efforts to book keep where the oil went must now include this plume," said Christopher Reddy, a WHOI marine geochemist and oil spill expert and one of the authors of the study, in a statement.
The findings are based on 57,000 discrete chemical analyses measured in real time using an autonomous underwater vehicle and a type of underwater mass spectrometer known as TETHYS (Tethered Yearlong Spectrometer) during a June 19-28 scientific cruise aboard the R/V Endeavor. The R/V Endeavor is owned by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by the University of Rhode Island.
""We've shown conclusively not only that a plume exists, but also defined its origin and near-field structure," said WHOI's Richard Camilli, leader of the research expedition and lead author of the paper. "Until now, these have been treated as a theoretical matter in the literature."
The scientists found that the plume is degrading "relatively slowly" meaning that it "will persist for some time," according to the press statement.
"Many people speculated that subsurface oil droplets were being easily biodegraded," said Camilli. "Well, we didn't find that. We found it was still there."
The spill, which started after a well blowout on April 20, 2010, is estimated by the government at 4.9 million barrels, the largest in U.S. history.
______________________________________________________
mongabay.com, August 19, 2010
Researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have detected a plume of hydrocarbons that is at least 22 miles long and more than 3,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, a result of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, reports a study published in Science.
The 1.2-mile-wide, 650-foot-high plume of trapped hydrocarbons provides a clue on where all the oil has gone as oil slicks on the surface disappear.
"These results indicate that efforts to book keep where the oil went must now include this plume," said Christopher Reddy, a WHOI marine geochemist and oil spill expert and one of the authors of the study, in a statement.
The findings are based on 57,000 discrete chemical analyses measured in real time using an autonomous underwater vehicle and a type of underwater mass spectrometer known as TETHYS (Tethered Yearlong Spectrometer) during a June 19-28 scientific cruise aboard the R/V Endeavor. The R/V Endeavor is owned by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by the University of Rhode Island.
""We've shown conclusively not only that a plume exists, but also defined its origin and near-field structure," said WHOI's Richard Camilli, leader of the research expedition and lead author of the paper. "Until now, these have been treated as a theoretical matter in the literature."
The scientists found that the plume is degrading "relatively slowly" meaning that it "will persist for some time," according to the press statement.
"Many people speculated that subsurface oil droplets were being easily biodegraded," said Camilli. "Well, we didn't find that. We found it was still there."
The spill, which started after a well blowout on April 20, 2010, is estimated by the government at 4.9 million barrels, the largest in U.S. history.
______________________________________________________
Monday, August 9, 2010
Five Ways Oil Drops Could Still Be Deadly to Gulf (via HerpDigest)
Five Ways Oil Drops Could Still Be Deadly to Gulf
by Eli Kintisch Science Magazine, August 2, 2010
Last week the debate about the fate of oil in the gulf took, according to major media reports, an optimistic turn. Now Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) is raising questions about federal oversight of dispersant use in the gulf, and a Senate committee is holding a hearing on the issue on Wednesday.
But while scientists acknowledge that dispersants can have negative effects, they are generally more worried about the oil than the dispersants, as the oil is far more toxic and more than 100 times more of it has been released. At a briefing last week in Washington, D.C., scientists were cautiously supportive of the government's gutsy decision on 15 May to allow BP to squirt tens of thousands of gallons of dispersants a day a mile deep. More than a million gallons of Corexit have been released on the sea floor since, with another 800,000 gallons sprayed by plane on the surface-in what amounts to a major, unprecedented experiment. Overall, the researchers said the move saved vast areas of coastal ecosystems and greatly reduced the amount of oil that would need to be collected or burned.
Dispersants break the oil into tiny molecules that present tens of thousands of times more surface area than normal crude to microbes to be eaten; the molecules also rise to the surface much more slowly than raw crude. Some 50 scientists at a workshop at Louisiana State University predicted these benefits from the dispersants in May, signaling their support for the decision the government had made; some dissenters led by Sylvia Earle have said it was too soon to declare it a success.
But scientists at last week's congressional briefing said say some important risks to the undersea environment remain:
1) Oil drops could wreak havoc on tuna eggs and larvae. Atlantic bluefin tuna are now spawning in their warm gulf waters. How might the oil drops affect their food supply? Biologist Robert Diaz of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, said scientists don't know. "Is the dispersed oil better or worse for the tuna-that's hard to judge," Diaz said.
2) By virtue of their size, small oil drops could be deadly. Dispersing the oil means breaking it into smaller drops, which can do unexpected things-like get wedged into the layers of armor of baby crabs, a Tulane University scientist found, as ScienceInsider reported earlier this month. Although the oil has yet to be detected in the bodies of the larvae, researchers don't know what effect it may have on the crabs and whether natural molting of their shells could rid them of the pollutant. Had the decision been made not to disperse the oil under water, the oil would have largely remained on the surface where "perhaps the larvae wouldn't see it," said Diaz. By making the oil drops tiny-biologist Kenneth Lee of the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Nova Scotia, Canada, estimated the dispersed oil drops are several hundred micrometers in size-they are far smaller than shrimp eggs or larvae, and that provides a new way for the pollutant to get into their cells. !
"Hopefully, [the oil] is diluted enough" that it's not affecting them much, said Diaz, although he has no data either way.
3) Vast undersea plumes may have gone undetected. As ScienceInsider reported last week, dozens of federal and academic scientists aboard seven research vessels in the gulf believe the undersea oil is very dilute and has remained, for the most part, within 50 km of the wellhead. Lee described how scientists use daily data from this monitoring to plan where to send ships the following day, lowering the chance that large oil plumes have remained undetected after weeks of searching. But could giant plumes have been missed in the vast gulf anyway? "That's possible. We just don't know," said oceanographer Nancy Kinner of the University of New Hampshire in Durham. Undersea gliders operating at depth have given additional data to scientists on currents, but they lack strong detection devices for finding oil. "It's just not something you can rig to these gliders in 30 days," said Kinner, who laid out a series of new research priorities for spill scientists related to finding su!
ch plumes. (ScienceInsider will cover that next week.)
4) Are dispersants playing chemical chaperones for poisons? Dispersants form minute oil droplets by coating the oily molecules, making them into small drops surrounded by dispersant molecules. Chemist Bob Gagosian of the Consortium for Ocean Leadership in Washington, D.C., told Science Insider yesterday that some scientists worry that this could allow the most toxic elements of crude oil-polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)-to enter the bodies of ocean microbes, with unknown effects.
5) Unk-unks. Dangers scientists don't know about so they can't gauge them-so-called unknown-unknowns-might lurk far below the surface. "Our knowledge declines with depth," said Diaz. For example, he said, researchers have scant details about how ecosystems that rely on deep-sea sediments work. Plus, pointed out Lee, natural oil seeps spew oil into the ocean all the time, which is, to some extent, naturally dispersed into smaller drops. Scientists have little ability thus far to differentiate between these sources and oil droplets formed by Corexit-or, for that matter, teasing out an anthropogenic signs.
by Eli Kintisch Science Magazine, August 2, 2010
Last week the debate about the fate of oil in the gulf took, according to major media reports, an optimistic turn. Now Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) is raising questions about federal oversight of dispersant use in the gulf, and a Senate committee is holding a hearing on the issue on Wednesday.
But while scientists acknowledge that dispersants can have negative effects, they are generally more worried about the oil than the dispersants, as the oil is far more toxic and more than 100 times more of it has been released. At a briefing last week in Washington, D.C., scientists were cautiously supportive of the government's gutsy decision on 15 May to allow BP to squirt tens of thousands of gallons of dispersants a day a mile deep. More than a million gallons of Corexit have been released on the sea floor since, with another 800,000 gallons sprayed by plane on the surface-in what amounts to a major, unprecedented experiment. Overall, the researchers said the move saved vast areas of coastal ecosystems and greatly reduced the amount of oil that would need to be collected or burned.
Dispersants break the oil into tiny molecules that present tens of thousands of times more surface area than normal crude to microbes to be eaten; the molecules also rise to the surface much more slowly than raw crude. Some 50 scientists at a workshop at Louisiana State University predicted these benefits from the dispersants in May, signaling their support for the decision the government had made; some dissenters led by Sylvia Earle have said it was too soon to declare it a success.
But scientists at last week's congressional briefing said say some important risks to the undersea environment remain:
1) Oil drops could wreak havoc on tuna eggs and larvae. Atlantic bluefin tuna are now spawning in their warm gulf waters. How might the oil drops affect their food supply? Biologist Robert Diaz of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, said scientists don't know. "Is the dispersed oil better or worse for the tuna-that's hard to judge," Diaz said.
2) By virtue of their size, small oil drops could be deadly. Dispersing the oil means breaking it into smaller drops, which can do unexpected things-like get wedged into the layers of armor of baby crabs, a Tulane University scientist found, as ScienceInsider reported earlier this month. Although the oil has yet to be detected in the bodies of the larvae, researchers don't know what effect it may have on the crabs and whether natural molting of their shells could rid them of the pollutant. Had the decision been made not to disperse the oil under water, the oil would have largely remained on the surface where "perhaps the larvae wouldn't see it," said Diaz. By making the oil drops tiny-biologist Kenneth Lee of the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Nova Scotia, Canada, estimated the dispersed oil drops are several hundred micrometers in size-they are far smaller than shrimp eggs or larvae, and that provides a new way for the pollutant to get into their cells. !
"Hopefully, [the oil] is diluted enough" that it's not affecting them much, said Diaz, although he has no data either way.
3) Vast undersea plumes may have gone undetected. As ScienceInsider reported last week, dozens of federal and academic scientists aboard seven research vessels in the gulf believe the undersea oil is very dilute and has remained, for the most part, within 50 km of the wellhead. Lee described how scientists use daily data from this monitoring to plan where to send ships the following day, lowering the chance that large oil plumes have remained undetected after weeks of searching. But could giant plumes have been missed in the vast gulf anyway? "That's possible. We just don't know," said oceanographer Nancy Kinner of the University of New Hampshire in Durham. Undersea gliders operating at depth have given additional data to scientists on currents, but they lack strong detection devices for finding oil. "It's just not something you can rig to these gliders in 30 days," said Kinner, who laid out a series of new research priorities for spill scientists related to finding su!
ch plumes. (ScienceInsider will cover that next week.)
4) Are dispersants playing chemical chaperones for poisons? Dispersants form minute oil droplets by coating the oily molecules, making them into small drops surrounded by dispersant molecules. Chemist Bob Gagosian of the Consortium for Ocean Leadership in Washington, D.C., told Science Insider yesterday that some scientists worry that this could allow the most toxic elements of crude oil-polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)-to enter the bodies of ocean microbes, with unknown effects.
5) Unk-unks. Dangers scientists don't know about so they can't gauge them-so-called unknown-unknowns-might lurk far below the surface. "Our knowledge declines with depth," said Diaz. For example, he said, researchers have scant details about how ecosystems that rely on deep-sea sediments work. Plus, pointed out Lee, natural oil seeps spew oil into the ocean all the time, which is, to some extent, naturally dispersed into smaller drops. Scientists have little ability thus far to differentiate between these sources and oil droplets formed by Corexit-or, for that matter, teasing out an anthropogenic signs.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
After Oil Spills, Hidden Damage Can Last for Years (Via HerpDigest)
After Oil Spills, Hidden Damage Can Last for Years
By Justin Gills and Leslie Kaufman
Published: July 17, 2010, NYTimes
More than an ocean away, on the Breton coast of France, scientists surveying the damage after another huge oil spill found that disturbances in the food chain persisted for more than a decade.
And on the southern gulf coast in Mexico, an American researcher peering into a mangrove swamp spotted lingering damage 30 years after that shore was struck by an enormous spill.
These far-flung shorelines hit by oil in the past offer clues to what people living along the Gulf Coast can expect now that the great oil calamity of 2010 may be nearing an end.
Every oil spill is different, but the thread that unites these disparate scenes is a growing scientific awareness of the persistent damage that spills can do - and of just how long oil can linger in the environment, hidden in out-of-the-way spots.
At the same time, scientists who have worked to survey and counteract the damage from spills say the picture in the gulf is far from hopeless.
"Thoughts that this is going to kill the Gulf of Mexico are just wild overreactions," said Jeffrey W. Short, a scientist who led some of the most important research after the Exxon Valdez spill and now works for an environmental advocacy group called Oceana. "It's going to go away, the oil is. It's not going to last forever."
But how long will it last?
Only 20 years ago, the conventional wisdom was that oil spills did almost all their damage in the first weeks, as fresh oil loaded with toxic substances hit wildlife and marsh grasses, washed onto beaches and killed fish and turtles in the deep sea.
But disasters like the Valdez in 1989, the Ixtoc 1 in Mexico in 1979, the Amoco Cadiz in France in 1978 and two Cape Cod spills, including the Bouchard 65 barge in 1974 - all studied over decades with the improved techniques of modern chemistry and biology - have allowed scientists to paint a more complex portrait of what happens after a spill.
It is still clear that the bulk of the damage happens quickly, and that nature then begins to recuperate. After a few years, a casual observer visiting a hard-hit location might see nothing amiss. Birds and fish are likely to have rebounded, and the oil will seem to be gone.
But often, as Dr. Short and his team found in Alaska, some of it has merely gone underground, hiding in pockets where it can still do low-level damage to wildlife over many years. And the human response to a spill can mitigate - or intensify - its long-term effects. Oddly enough, some of the worst damage to occur from spills in recent decades has come from people trying too hard to clean them up.
It is hard for scientists to offer predictions about the present spill, for two reasons.
The ecology of the Gulf of Mexico is specially adapted to break down oil, more so than any other body of water in the world - though how rapidly and completely it can break down an amount this size is essentially unknown.
And because this spill is emerging a mile under the surface and many of the toxic components of the oil are dissolving into deep water and spreading far and wide, scientists simply do not know what the effects in the deep ocean are likely to be.
Still, many aspects of the spill resemble spills past, especially at the shoreline, and that gives researchers some confidence in predicting how events will unfold.
Remarkable Persistence
In 1969, a barge hit the rocks off the coast of West Falmouth, Mass., spilling 189,000 gallons of fuel oil into Buzzards Bay. Today, the fiddler crabs at nearby Wild Harbor still act drunk, moving erratically and reacting slowly to predators.
The odd behavior is consistent with a growing body of research showing how oil spills of many types have remarkably persistent effects, often at levels low enough to escape routine notice.
Jennifer Culbertson was a graduate student at Boston University in 2005 when she made plaster casts of crab burrows. She discovered that instead of drilling straight down, like normal crabs, the ones at Wild Harbor were going only a few inches deep and then turning sideways, repelled by an oily layer still lingering below the surface.
Other researchers established that the crabs were suffering from a kind of narcosis induced by hydrocarbon poisoning. Their troubles had serious implications for the marsh.
"Fiddler crabs normally play a crucial role in tilling the salt marsh, which helps provide oxygen to the roots of salt marsh grasses," Dr. Culbertson said about her study.
In Alaska, the Exxon Valdez spill dumped nearly 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, and it spread down the Alaska coast, ultimately oiling 1,200 miles of shoreline. By the late 1990s, the oil seemed to be largely gone, but liver tests on ducks and sea otters showed that they were still being exposed to hydrocarbons, chemical compounds contained in crude.
Dr. Short, then working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, mounted a series of excavations to figure out what had happened, with his team ultimately digging thousands of holes in Alaska's beaches. Oil was found in about 8 percent of them, usually in places with too little oxygen for microbes to break it down.
Exactly how much damage continues from the oil is a matter of dispute, with Exxon commissioning its own studies that challenge the government's findings on the extent of the impact. But it is clear that otters dig for food in areas containing oil, and that they, like nearly a dozen other species of animals, have still not entirely recovered from the 1989 spill.
At the rate the oil is breaking down, Dr. Short estimates that some of it could still be there a century from now.
Increasing the Stress
Perhaps the greatest single hazard from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the gulf is the long-term erosion of delicate coastal wetlands it could cause. At another spill site on the Massachusetts coast, not far from the West Falmouth spill, the legacy of oil contamination is evident in the difference between two marshes on either side of a pebbly shoreline road.
On one side, where the marshes were suffused in 1974 when the grounded Bouchard 65 barge dumped 11,000 to 37,000 gallons of fuel oil into the sea, the grasses are stunted and sparse. They cling tentatively to the edge of the sandy beach. But the grasses on the other side, untouched by oil, rise tall and thick.
Louisiana's coastline contains some of the most productive marshes in the world, delivering an abundance of shrimp and oysters and providing critical habitat and breeding ground for birds and fish.
But even before the spill, the land was under enormous environmental stress, largely due to human activity. Dams on the Mississippi River and its tributaries have slowed the flow of sediment to the marshes, and global warming has caused sea level to rise.
The Louisiana marshes are eroding at an extraordinary rate - a football field's worth sinks into the Gulf of Mexico every 38 minutes, according to the Louisiana Office of Coastal Management - and the worry now is that the oil spill will accelerate that erosion.
The Bouchard shows how that could happen. When the barge ran aground, thousands of gallons of a particularly toxic fuel oil spilled into the icy water and were swept to shore by the strong tides.
The oil made landfall just two miles
north of where the West Falmouth oil spill had washed up only five years earlier. Winsor Cove, a classic New England bay surrounded by bluffs and stately homes, bore the brunt. Razor clams suffocated and rose to the surface by the hundreds to die.
But the lasting damage of the spill, severe erosion of the shoreline, took months longer to unfold.
George Hampson, now retired, was on the scientific team at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution that studied a series of spills in the area. He recalled that after the 1974 spill the beach grasses, called spartina, which had grown like luxuriant matting along the shore, died.
"The first year it was just like a moonscape," Mr. Hampson said.
Spartina, a common beach grass that fills the marshes along the North Atlantic and in the Gulf of Mexico, is a crucial factor in keeping marshlands from eroding into the sea. Its roots act as a vast net keeping soil in place.
But the oil in Winsor Cove set off a vicious downward spiral. "It was a race between how much peat was eroding and how quickly the grass was coming back," Mr. Hampson said.
Over the course of the next several winters, six feet of shore eroded, including a sand berm that stood above the rest of the beach. And as the view from the pebbled road indicates, the vegetation still struggles for a foothold today.
"It's been 35 years, and I'd say the grasses are just beginning to grow back," Mr. Hampson said.
It is certain that some of the heavily oiled spartina in Louisiana will die. For now, heavy oiling is limited to just the marsh fringes, but a strong surge in front of a hurricane could change that.
Bad Choices
Oil spills produce a powerful impulse to clean up the oil and restore as much of the environment as possible. But that impulse can itself be a source of destruction.
No case illustrates that point more starkly than the 1978 spill of the Amoco Cadiz tanker. Caught in a gale, it was propelled against rocks near the shore of northwestern France, spilling 67 million gallons of crude oil that washed over 200 miles of the coast of Brittany.
The immediate damage was bad enough: at least 20,000 seabirds found dead, thousands of tons of oysters lost and fish ridden with ulcers and tumors. But then the French authorities made it worse.
The area had marshes, and they were hit hard by oil that sank deep into the sediments. The authorities felt they needed to act aggressively.
Using bulldozers and tractors, they scraped close to 20 inches of oiled sediment from the top in the most polluted marshes and also straightened and deepened some natural tidal channels, to improve flushing.
Over time, these proved to have been disastrous judgments.
In areas that were not bulldozed, nature ultimately broke down most of the oil and the vegetation came back. But marsh plants turned out to be highly sensitive to the depth of the sediment, and more than a decade after the spill, the bulldozed marshes are still missing as much as 40 percent of their vegetation.
"In the case of Amoco Cadiz, the cleanup operations were more deadly than the pollution itself," said Jean-Claude Dauvin, a professor of marine biology and ecosystems at the University of Lille in northern France.
Much the same dynamic played out in Alaska after the Exxon Valdez spill. In some areas, Exxon power-washed oiled beaches with high-pressure, hot-water sprayers. It made for dramatic television images, with the company seemingly working hard against the spill. But scientists ultimately determined that it was a disaster for the tidal ecology, with clams and other organisms showing greatly delayed recovery on the laundered beaches, compared with oiled beaches that were not cleaned.
The lesson, scientists say, is not that people should never try to clean up an oil spill. It is possible to do too little as well as too much. But the calculation of how much to do is tricky, demanding deep scientific understanding of an area's ecology. Applying supposed common sense has repeatedly led to mistakes.
Already in Louisiana, battles have erupted between the Army Corps of Engineers and local residents, led by Gov. Bobby Jindal, over proposals to build sand and rock barriers to block the oil from coming into the marshes. The corps has been cautious on approval permits and recently rejected a plan to build a rock barrier outside Barataria Bay, arguing that such structures would change water-flow patterns to the possible detriment of the marsh ecology.
No matter how that battle plays out, a tough and potentially contentious issue in Louisiana in coming months may be the question of whether the marshes should be burned.
If the top layer of grasses and the clinging oil are burned off, the roots should survive and allow healthier grasses to sprout back. But scientists say that can be done only if there is no chance of new oil coming in, since burning might expose the roots buried in the sediment, making them vulnerable to absorbing the oil. Given the immensity of the spill, it is not clear when that hazard will have passed.
"If you consider the volume," said Ronald J. Kendall, chairman of environmental toxicology at Texas Tech University, "we could see re-oiling for years to come."
Natural Resilience
The other day, a Mexican fishing boat threaded its way deep into a coastal mangrove swamp on the Bay of Campeche. It carried two scientists, an American, Wes Tunnell, and a Mexican, Julio Sánchez.
They were looking for remnants of an oil spill that happened 30 years earlier, when the Ixtoc 1 well in the bay exploded and gushed oil for 10 months. It has stood for decades as the worst accidental release of oil in any ocean. (It may or may not have been surpassed by the BP spill; estimates vary.)
Mangroves are vital coastal plants, providing rich habitat for many types of creatures and serving as a nursery for many marine species. To the untrained eye, the ones in Mexico appeared healthy, billowing up from the shoreline in shades of green, balanced on a gray carpet of roots that protruded from the water.
But Dr. Tunnell pointed out subtle signs of damage. There were clearings in the foliage, instead of an unbroken tangle of roots and mangrove trees. The branches of the outer layer of red mangroves seemed stunted.
"For a mangrove swamp, this should be much denser," Dr. Tunnell said. "We shouldn't even be able to see in here."
The scientists scrambled out of the boats to a small clearing. Dr. Sanchez bent down, sliced out a layer of sediment and broke it to reveal gooey tar in the middle.
Dr. Tunnell sniffed. "It smells like a newly paved road," he said.
They could not be sure it was oil from the Ixtoc well, since smaller spills have hit the area too, but the scientists agree with local fishermen that much of the damage to the mangroves goes back to Ixtoc.
They sent the sample to a laboratory. The fishermen also said that oysters that used to be found clinging to the mangrove roots seemed to have vanished after the spill and never returned.
The Ixtoc blowout of 1979-80 is the closest analogy to the BP spill, even though it happened in much shallower water. Ixtoc soiled hundreds of miles of beaches, all the way to Texas.
Dr. Tunnell, of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M, Corpus Christi, was early in his career then. He was dismayed to see the oil kill 50 percent to 80 percent of the bottom-dwelling creatures in some areas near the Texas shore.
"As a young scientist, I thought, 'Oh, no, this is wiping out our beaches,' " Dr. Tunnell said.
But then he watched in amazement as the recuperative powers of the gulf kicked in.
Because oil constantly seeps into the gulf from natural fissures, the water is teeming with microbes adapted to break oil down and use it as food. The breakdown happens faster there than in colder bodies of water, and the warm water helps some species recover faster, too.
Along the Texas coast, within a few years after the Ixtoc spill ended in 1980, it was hard to tell that anything had gone wrong. Creatures repopulated the areas that had been wiped out.
No one can be sure that the recovery from the BP spill will be a replay of Ixtoc. But the greatest reason for optimism is nature's demonstrated capacity to handle the assaults on it.
"Thirty years ago, that 140 million gallons of oil went somewhere," Dr. Tunnell said. "The gulf recovered and became very productive again. My concern is: Is it as resilient today as it was 30 years ago?"
By Justin Gills and Leslie Kaufman
Published: July 17, 2010, NYTimes
More than an ocean away, on the Breton coast of France, scientists surveying the damage after another huge oil spill found that disturbances in the food chain persisted for more than a decade.
And on the southern gulf coast in Mexico, an American researcher peering into a mangrove swamp spotted lingering damage 30 years after that shore was struck by an enormous spill.
These far-flung shorelines hit by oil in the past offer clues to what people living along the Gulf Coast can expect now that the great oil calamity of 2010 may be nearing an end.
Every oil spill is different, but the thread that unites these disparate scenes is a growing scientific awareness of the persistent damage that spills can do - and of just how long oil can linger in the environment, hidden in out-of-the-way spots.
At the same time, scientists who have worked to survey and counteract the damage from spills say the picture in the gulf is far from hopeless.
"Thoughts that this is going to kill the Gulf of Mexico are just wild overreactions," said Jeffrey W. Short, a scientist who led some of the most important research after the Exxon Valdez spill and now works for an environmental advocacy group called Oceana. "It's going to go away, the oil is. It's not going to last forever."
But how long will it last?
Only 20 years ago, the conventional wisdom was that oil spills did almost all their damage in the first weeks, as fresh oil loaded with toxic substances hit wildlife and marsh grasses, washed onto beaches and killed fish and turtles in the deep sea.
But disasters like the Valdez in 1989, the Ixtoc 1 in Mexico in 1979, the Amoco Cadiz in France in 1978 and two Cape Cod spills, including the Bouchard 65 barge in 1974 - all studied over decades with the improved techniques of modern chemistry and biology - have allowed scientists to paint a more complex portrait of what happens after a spill.
It is still clear that the bulk of the damage happens quickly, and that nature then begins to recuperate. After a few years, a casual observer visiting a hard-hit location might see nothing amiss. Birds and fish are likely to have rebounded, and the oil will seem to be gone.
But often, as Dr. Short and his team found in Alaska, some of it has merely gone underground, hiding in pockets where it can still do low-level damage to wildlife over many years. And the human response to a spill can mitigate - or intensify - its long-term effects. Oddly enough, some of the worst damage to occur from spills in recent decades has come from people trying too hard to clean them up.
It is hard for scientists to offer predictions about the present spill, for two reasons.
The ecology of the Gulf of Mexico is specially adapted to break down oil, more so than any other body of water in the world - though how rapidly and completely it can break down an amount this size is essentially unknown.
And because this spill is emerging a mile under the surface and many of the toxic components of the oil are dissolving into deep water and spreading far and wide, scientists simply do not know what the effects in the deep ocean are likely to be.
Still, many aspects of the spill resemble spills past, especially at the shoreline, and that gives researchers some confidence in predicting how events will unfold.
Remarkable Persistence
In 1969, a barge hit the rocks off the coast of West Falmouth, Mass., spilling 189,000 gallons of fuel oil into Buzzards Bay. Today, the fiddler crabs at nearby Wild Harbor still act drunk, moving erratically and reacting slowly to predators.
The odd behavior is consistent with a growing body of research showing how oil spills of many types have remarkably persistent effects, often at levels low enough to escape routine notice.
Jennifer Culbertson was a graduate student at Boston University in 2005 when she made plaster casts of crab burrows. She discovered that instead of drilling straight down, like normal crabs, the ones at Wild Harbor were going only a few inches deep and then turning sideways, repelled by an oily layer still lingering below the surface.
Other researchers established that the crabs were suffering from a kind of narcosis induced by hydrocarbon poisoning. Their troubles had serious implications for the marsh.
"Fiddler crabs normally play a crucial role in tilling the salt marsh, which helps provide oxygen to the roots of salt marsh grasses," Dr. Culbertson said about her study.
In Alaska, the Exxon Valdez spill dumped nearly 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, and it spread down the Alaska coast, ultimately oiling 1,200 miles of shoreline. By the late 1990s, the oil seemed to be largely gone, but liver tests on ducks and sea otters showed that they were still being exposed to hydrocarbons, chemical compounds contained in crude.
Dr. Short, then working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, mounted a series of excavations to figure out what had happened, with his team ultimately digging thousands of holes in Alaska's beaches. Oil was found in about 8 percent of them, usually in places with too little oxygen for microbes to break it down.
Exactly how much damage continues from the oil is a matter of dispute, with Exxon commissioning its own studies that challenge the government's findings on the extent of the impact. But it is clear that otters dig for food in areas containing oil, and that they, like nearly a dozen other species of animals, have still not entirely recovered from the 1989 spill.
At the rate the oil is breaking down, Dr. Short estimates that some of it could still be there a century from now.
Increasing the Stress
Perhaps the greatest single hazard from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the gulf is the long-term erosion of delicate coastal wetlands it could cause. At another spill site on the Massachusetts coast, not far from the West Falmouth spill, the legacy of oil contamination is evident in the difference between two marshes on either side of a pebbly shoreline road.
On one side, where the marshes were suffused in 1974 when the grounded Bouchard 65 barge dumped 11,000 to 37,000 gallons of fuel oil into the sea, the grasses are stunted and sparse. They cling tentatively to the edge of the sandy beach. But the grasses on the other side, untouched by oil, rise tall and thick.
Louisiana's coastline contains some of the most productive marshes in the world, delivering an abundance of shrimp and oysters and providing critical habitat and breeding ground for birds and fish.
But even before the spill, the land was under enormous environmental stress, largely due to human activity. Dams on the Mississippi River and its tributaries have slowed the flow of sediment to the marshes, and global warming has caused sea level to rise.
The Louisiana marshes are eroding at an extraordinary rate - a football field's worth sinks into the Gulf of Mexico every 38 minutes, according to the Louisiana Office of Coastal Management - and the worry now is that the oil spill will accelerate that erosion.
The Bouchard shows how that could happen. When the barge ran aground, thousands of gallons of a particularly toxic fuel oil spilled into the icy water and were swept to shore by the strong tides.
The oil made landfall just two miles
north of where the West Falmouth oil spill had washed up only five years earlier. Winsor Cove, a classic New England bay surrounded by bluffs and stately homes, bore the brunt. Razor clams suffocated and rose to the surface by the hundreds to die.
But the lasting damage of the spill, severe erosion of the shoreline, took months longer to unfold.
George Hampson, now retired, was on the scientific team at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution that studied a series of spills in the area. He recalled that after the 1974 spill the beach grasses, called spartina, which had grown like luxuriant matting along the shore, died.
"The first year it was just like a moonscape," Mr. Hampson said.
Spartina, a common beach grass that fills the marshes along the North Atlantic and in the Gulf of Mexico, is a crucial factor in keeping marshlands from eroding into the sea. Its roots act as a vast net keeping soil in place.
But the oil in Winsor Cove set off a vicious downward spiral. "It was a race between how much peat was eroding and how quickly the grass was coming back," Mr. Hampson said.
Over the course of the next several winters, six feet of shore eroded, including a sand berm that stood above the rest of the beach. And as the view from the pebbled road indicates, the vegetation still struggles for a foothold today.
"It's been 35 years, and I'd say the grasses are just beginning to grow back," Mr. Hampson said.
It is certain that some of the heavily oiled spartina in Louisiana will die. For now, heavy oiling is limited to just the marsh fringes, but a strong surge in front of a hurricane could change that.
Bad Choices
Oil spills produce a powerful impulse to clean up the oil and restore as much of the environment as possible. But that impulse can itself be a source of destruction.
No case illustrates that point more starkly than the 1978 spill of the Amoco Cadiz tanker. Caught in a gale, it was propelled against rocks near the shore of northwestern France, spilling 67 million gallons of crude oil that washed over 200 miles of the coast of Brittany.
The immediate damage was bad enough: at least 20,000 seabirds found dead, thousands of tons of oysters lost and fish ridden with ulcers and tumors. But then the French authorities made it worse.
The area had marshes, and they were hit hard by oil that sank deep into the sediments. The authorities felt they needed to act aggressively.
Using bulldozers and tractors, they scraped close to 20 inches of oiled sediment from the top in the most polluted marshes and also straightened and deepened some natural tidal channels, to improve flushing.
Over time, these proved to have been disastrous judgments.
In areas that were not bulldozed, nature ultimately broke down most of the oil and the vegetation came back. But marsh plants turned out to be highly sensitive to the depth of the sediment, and more than a decade after the spill, the bulldozed marshes are still missing as much as 40 percent of their vegetation.
"In the case of Amoco Cadiz, the cleanup operations were more deadly than the pollution itself," said Jean-Claude Dauvin, a professor of marine biology and ecosystems at the University of Lille in northern France.
Much the same dynamic played out in Alaska after the Exxon Valdez spill. In some areas, Exxon power-washed oiled beaches with high-pressure, hot-water sprayers. It made for dramatic television images, with the company seemingly working hard against the spill. But scientists ultimately determined that it was a disaster for the tidal ecology, with clams and other organisms showing greatly delayed recovery on the laundered beaches, compared with oiled beaches that were not cleaned.
The lesson, scientists say, is not that people should never try to clean up an oil spill. It is possible to do too little as well as too much. But the calculation of how much to do is tricky, demanding deep scientific understanding of an area's ecology. Applying supposed common sense has repeatedly led to mistakes.
Already in Louisiana, battles have erupted between the Army Corps of Engineers and local residents, led by Gov. Bobby Jindal, over proposals to build sand and rock barriers to block the oil from coming into the marshes. The corps has been cautious on approval permits and recently rejected a plan to build a rock barrier outside Barataria Bay, arguing that such structures would change water-flow patterns to the possible detriment of the marsh ecology.
No matter how that battle plays out, a tough and potentially contentious issue in Louisiana in coming months may be the question of whether the marshes should be burned.
If the top layer of grasses and the clinging oil are burned off, the roots should survive and allow healthier grasses to sprout back. But scientists say that can be done only if there is no chance of new oil coming in, since burning might expose the roots buried in the sediment, making them vulnerable to absorbing the oil. Given the immensity of the spill, it is not clear when that hazard will have passed.
"If you consider the volume," said Ronald J. Kendall, chairman of environmental toxicology at Texas Tech University, "we could see re-oiling for years to come."
Natural Resilience
The other day, a Mexican fishing boat threaded its way deep into a coastal mangrove swamp on the Bay of Campeche. It carried two scientists, an American, Wes Tunnell, and a Mexican, Julio Sánchez.
They were looking for remnants of an oil spill that happened 30 years earlier, when the Ixtoc 1 well in the bay exploded and gushed oil for 10 months. It has stood for decades as the worst accidental release of oil in any ocean. (It may or may not have been surpassed by the BP spill; estimates vary.)
Mangroves are vital coastal plants, providing rich habitat for many types of creatures and serving as a nursery for many marine species. To the untrained eye, the ones in Mexico appeared healthy, billowing up from the shoreline in shades of green, balanced on a gray carpet of roots that protruded from the water.
But Dr. Tunnell pointed out subtle signs of damage. There were clearings in the foliage, instead of an unbroken tangle of roots and mangrove trees. The branches of the outer layer of red mangroves seemed stunted.
"For a mangrove swamp, this should be much denser," Dr. Tunnell said. "We shouldn't even be able to see in here."
The scientists scrambled out of the boats to a small clearing. Dr. Sanchez bent down, sliced out a layer of sediment and broke it to reveal gooey tar in the middle.
Dr. Tunnell sniffed. "It smells like a newly paved road," he said.
They could not be sure it was oil from the Ixtoc well, since smaller spills have hit the area too, but the scientists agree with local fishermen that much of the damage to the mangroves goes back to Ixtoc.
They sent the sample to a laboratory. The fishermen also said that oysters that used to be found clinging to the mangrove roots seemed to have vanished after the spill and never returned.
The Ixtoc blowout of 1979-80 is the closest analogy to the BP spill, even though it happened in much shallower water. Ixtoc soiled hundreds of miles of beaches, all the way to Texas.
Dr. Tunnell, of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M, Corpus Christi, was early in his career then. He was dismayed to see the oil kill 50 percent to 80 percent of the bottom-dwelling creatures in some areas near the Texas shore.
"As a young scientist, I thought, 'Oh, no, this is wiping out our beaches,' " Dr. Tunnell said.
But then he watched in amazement as the recuperative powers of the gulf kicked in.
Because oil constantly seeps into the gulf from natural fissures, the water is teeming with microbes adapted to break oil down and use it as food. The breakdown happens faster there than in colder bodies of water, and the warm water helps some species recover faster, too.
Along the Texas coast, within a few years after the Ixtoc spill ended in 1980, it was hard to tell that anything had gone wrong. Creatures repopulated the areas that had been wiped out.
No one can be sure that the recovery from the BP spill will be a replay of Ixtoc. But the greatest reason for optimism is nature's demonstrated capacity to handle the assaults on it.
"Thirty years ago, that 140 million gallons of oil went somewhere," Dr. Tunnell said. "The gulf recovered and became very productive again. My concern is: Is it as resilient today as it was 30 years ago?"
Sunday, July 4, 2010
BURNED WHALE IN GULF
http://www.rense.com/general91/whale.htm
On Tuesday, June 15, the NOAA Ship Pisces reported a dead sperm whale floating 77 miles due south of the Deepwater Horizon spill site. NOAA is currently in the process of conducting thorough testing to determine the circumstances surrounding the mammal's death, as well as collect information about its life. This is the first dead whale reported since BP's rig exploded on April 20 It was not found in oiled waters; however, its location of death is unknown.
As soon as the whale was sighted, Pisces Field Party Chief Paul Felts called the marine mammal hotline to report the finding to the Wildlife Branch of the Unified Command and NOAA's marine mammal experts.
Based on the estimated size of the whale, scientists believe it is a sub-adult. Its condition suggests it may have been dead for between several days to more than a week. Although it was not found in oiled water, NOAA marine mammal experts are using hindcasting analysis to look into the location from which the whale carcass may have drifted.
While it is impossible to confirm whether exposure to oil was the cause of death, NOAA is reviewing whether factors such as ship strikes and entanglement can be eliminated. Samples collected from this carcass will be stored under proper protocols and handed off when the Pisces comes to port on July 2, or possibly if another boat is sent to meet the Pisces. Full analysis of the samples will take several weeks.
In accordance with the Wildlife Branch protocols, NOAA's Southeast Regional Marine Mammal Stranding Coordinator Blair Mase requested that the NOAA field crew take photographs of the approximately 25-foot whale, collect skin swab for oil analysis, collect blubber and skin samples for analysis, and measure its height in the water. Although the whale is very decomposed, the photographs and samples will help scientists better understand how long it has been dead. The blubber and skin samples will be used for genetic analysis and to determine the sex of the animal. Measurements of the whale floating in the water will be used to determine how far and how fast it might have floated from where it died. The carcass has been marked so that aerial reconnaissance teams will be able to identify the individual and will not report it as a new mortality.
NOAA and the Unified Command Wildlife Branch have had numerous reports of sperm whales seen swimming in the oil, but this is the first confirmed report of a dead whale since the BP oil spill began. NOAA remains concerned about sperm whales, which are the only endangered resident cetaceans in the upper Gulf of Mexico. Sperm whales spend most of their time in the upper Gulf offshore area, live at depth in areas where subsurface dispersants and oil are present, and feed on deepwater squid, which may also be impacted by the oil and dispersants.
The NOAA Ship Gordon Gunter sailed yesterday for a multi-week cruise to do photo identification, assessments, tagging, biopsies, and prey-density studies for sperm whales and Bryde's whales. Nearshore and offshore response efforts are continuing, and include investigations to determine cause of death or illness for dolphins that have stranded and aerial surveys for cetaceans throughout the area. The information gained from these efforts will help assess the impacts of this event on cetaceans in the Gulf of Mexico.
Another story on this outrage... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/us/18whale.html?_r=1
On Tuesday, June 15, the NOAA Ship Pisces reported a dead sperm whale floating 77 miles due south of the Deepwater Horizon spill site. NOAA is currently in the process of conducting thorough testing to determine the circumstances surrounding the mammal's death, as well as collect information about its life. This is the first dead whale reported since BP's rig exploded on April 20 It was not found in oiled waters; however, its location of death is unknown.
As soon as the whale was sighted, Pisces Field Party Chief Paul Felts called the marine mammal hotline to report the finding to the Wildlife Branch of the Unified Command and NOAA's marine mammal experts.
Based on the estimated size of the whale, scientists believe it is a sub-adult. Its condition suggests it may have been dead for between several days to more than a week. Although it was not found in oiled water, NOAA marine mammal experts are using hindcasting analysis to look into the location from which the whale carcass may have drifted.
While it is impossible to confirm whether exposure to oil was the cause of death, NOAA is reviewing whether factors such as ship strikes and entanglement can be eliminated. Samples collected from this carcass will be stored under proper protocols and handed off when the Pisces comes to port on July 2, or possibly if another boat is sent to meet the Pisces. Full analysis of the samples will take several weeks.
In accordance with the Wildlife Branch protocols, NOAA's Southeast Regional Marine Mammal Stranding Coordinator Blair Mase requested that the NOAA field crew take photographs of the approximately 25-foot whale, collect skin swab for oil analysis, collect blubber and skin samples for analysis, and measure its height in the water. Although the whale is very decomposed, the photographs and samples will help scientists better understand how long it has been dead. The blubber and skin samples will be used for genetic analysis and to determine the sex of the animal. Measurements of the whale floating in the water will be used to determine how far and how fast it might have floated from where it died. The carcass has been marked so that aerial reconnaissance teams will be able to identify the individual and will not report it as a new mortality.
NOAA and the Unified Command Wildlife Branch have had numerous reports of sperm whales seen swimming in the oil, but this is the first confirmed report of a dead whale since the BP oil spill began. NOAA remains concerned about sperm whales, which are the only endangered resident cetaceans in the upper Gulf of Mexico. Sperm whales spend most of their time in the upper Gulf offshore area, live at depth in areas where subsurface dispersants and oil are present, and feed on deepwater squid, which may also be impacted by the oil and dispersants.
The NOAA Ship Gordon Gunter sailed yesterday for a multi-week cruise to do photo identification, assessments, tagging, biopsies, and prey-density studies for sperm whales and Bryde's whales. Nearshore and offshore response efforts are continuing, and include investigations to determine cause of death or illness for dolphins that have stranded and aerial surveys for cetaceans throughout the area. The information gained from these efforts will help assess the impacts of this event on cetaceans in the Gulf of Mexico.
Another story on this outrage... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/us/18whale.html?_r=1
Friday, July 2, 2010
Thousands of Sea Turtle Eggs To Be Moved Out of Oil's Way (Via HerpDigest)
Thousands of Sea Turtle Eggs To Be Moved Out of Oil's Way
by Lauren Schenkman on June 29, 2010
For the tens of thousands of sea turtle eggs incubating in the sands of the northern Gulf of Mexico-and dangerously near the oil-it's come to this: Officials are planning to dig up the approximately 700 nests on Alabama and the Florida panhandle beaches, pack the eggs in Styrofoam boxes, and fly them to a facility in eastern Florida where they can mature. Once the eggs have hatched, the young turtles will be released in darkness on Florida's Atlantic beaches into oil-free water. Translocation of nests on this scale has never been attempted before.
"This is really a worst-case scenario," says Michael Ziccardi, a University of California, Davis, veterinarian and oil-spill veteran who is leading the government's response efforts for marine mammals and sea turtles. "We hoped we wouldn't get to this point."
Sea turtles that hatch in the Northern Gulf of Mexico typically spend a few months near the coast, and many eventually enter the Loop Current to make their way into the Atlantic. This year, that path would put them right in the oil spill. Federal officials in charge of response "believe that most, if not all, of the 2010 Northern Gulf hatchling cohort would be at high risk of encountering oil during this period," according to the written translocation plan, developed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. They estimate that 50,000 hatchlings could be lost to the oil.
Nests are already being marked so that cleanup crews can skirt them, and officials hope to begin moving them within weeks, says Ziccardi. The operations will continue well past laying season, which ends in August, because eggs incubate for about 60 days. The logistics of finding contractors to train and lead collection teams, a facility where the eggs can come to term, and an air-freight company that can transport them three times a week for the next 3 months are daunting.
Officials plan to dig up the eggs at about day 50 of their incubation-well after the hatchling's sex, which is determined by the nest's temperature, is set. Workers moving the eggs have to be careful not to turn them over or roll them so as not to disturb membranes that connect the embryo to the shell and cushion it, says Philip Allman, a marine biologist at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers. "If the orientation of the egg is turned significantly from the position in the nest, the rotation can break the membranes and cause the embryos to die," he says. "Even in flight, turbulence and a bumpy landing could be enough" to break the membranes.
Moving the eggs could also affect where the turtles go to nest once they're adults, Allman says, because "a lot of evidence indicates that sea turtles return to the same region where they hatch from to nest." Some researchers believe embryos somehow learn the location of their home beach while still in the egg; others think that "imprinting" process happens as hatchlings make their way to the water. The plan could mean the hatchlings imprint on the east coast of Florida, which "may impact which breeding population they join once maturing," Allman says. Although this could change the genetic makeup of east coast populations, which aren't identical to those in the northern Gulf of Mexico populations, he thinks the risks of negative effects are minimal. "I think it is a chance worth taking," he says.
Individual nests are sometimes moved above high tide or brought into captivity to protect eggs from predators or poaching. Although an operation of this scale is unprecedented, it's the best option right now, says Thane Wibbels, a herpetologist at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. "You're either reactive or proactive, and if you're reactive, it's too late."
Smaller-scale translocations have been successful, Wibbels points out; Each year from 1978 until 1988, about 2000 Kemp's ridley sea turtle eggs were moved from the species' sole nesting beach in Rancho Nuevo, Mexico, to Padre Island National Seashore near Corpus Christi, Texas, in a bid to start a second nesting beach. Today, he says, about 200 turtles nest there.
After the Ixtoc I well blew out in the Gulf of Mexico in 1979, 9000 Kemp's ridley hatchlings were kept on their nesting beach and then transported to cleaner waters, says Allman. "Multiple authors reported a few years later that the oil spill did not have a significant impact to the Kemp's ridley sea turtles," he says.
"In a normal year you'd think, 'That's crazy,' " Wibbels says. "We want these turtles to do what's natural, ... but if you have to prevent a large amount of mortality, you have to make tough decisions."
by Lauren Schenkman on June 29, 2010
For the tens of thousands of sea turtle eggs incubating in the sands of the northern Gulf of Mexico-and dangerously near the oil-it's come to this: Officials are planning to dig up the approximately 700 nests on Alabama and the Florida panhandle beaches, pack the eggs in Styrofoam boxes, and fly them to a facility in eastern Florida where they can mature. Once the eggs have hatched, the young turtles will be released in darkness on Florida's Atlantic beaches into oil-free water. Translocation of nests on this scale has never been attempted before.
"This is really a worst-case scenario," says Michael Ziccardi, a University of California, Davis, veterinarian and oil-spill veteran who is leading the government's response efforts for marine mammals and sea turtles. "We hoped we wouldn't get to this point."
Sea turtles that hatch in the Northern Gulf of Mexico typically spend a few months near the coast, and many eventually enter the Loop Current to make their way into the Atlantic. This year, that path would put them right in the oil spill. Federal officials in charge of response "believe that most, if not all, of the 2010 Northern Gulf hatchling cohort would be at high risk of encountering oil during this period," according to the written translocation plan, developed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. They estimate that 50,000 hatchlings could be lost to the oil.
Nests are already being marked so that cleanup crews can skirt them, and officials hope to begin moving them within weeks, says Ziccardi. The operations will continue well past laying season, which ends in August, because eggs incubate for about 60 days. The logistics of finding contractors to train and lead collection teams, a facility where the eggs can come to term, and an air-freight company that can transport them three times a week for the next 3 months are daunting.
Officials plan to dig up the eggs at about day 50 of their incubation-well after the hatchling's sex, which is determined by the nest's temperature, is set. Workers moving the eggs have to be careful not to turn them over or roll them so as not to disturb membranes that connect the embryo to the shell and cushion it, says Philip Allman, a marine biologist at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers. "If the orientation of the egg is turned significantly from the position in the nest, the rotation can break the membranes and cause the embryos to die," he says. "Even in flight, turbulence and a bumpy landing could be enough" to break the membranes.
Moving the eggs could also affect where the turtles go to nest once they're adults, Allman says, because "a lot of evidence indicates that sea turtles return to the same region where they hatch from to nest." Some researchers believe embryos somehow learn the location of their home beach while still in the egg; others think that "imprinting" process happens as hatchlings make their way to the water. The plan could mean the hatchlings imprint on the east coast of Florida, which "may impact which breeding population they join once maturing," Allman says. Although this could change the genetic makeup of east coast populations, which aren't identical to those in the northern Gulf of Mexico populations, he thinks the risks of negative effects are minimal. "I think it is a chance worth taking," he says.
Individual nests are sometimes moved above high tide or brought into captivity to protect eggs from predators or poaching. Although an operation of this scale is unprecedented, it's the best option right now, says Thane Wibbels, a herpetologist at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. "You're either reactive or proactive, and if you're reactive, it's too late."
Smaller-scale translocations have been successful, Wibbels points out; Each year from 1978 until 1988, about 2000 Kemp's ridley sea turtle eggs were moved from the species' sole nesting beach in Rancho Nuevo, Mexico, to Padre Island National Seashore near Corpus Christi, Texas, in a bid to start a second nesting beach. Today, he says, about 200 turtles nest there.
After the Ixtoc I well blew out in the Gulf of Mexico in 1979, 9000 Kemp's ridley hatchlings were kept on their nesting beach and then transported to cleaner waters, says Allman. "Multiple authors reported a few years later that the oil spill did not have a significant impact to the Kemp's ridley sea turtles," he says.
"In a normal year you'd think, 'That's crazy,' " Wibbels says. "We want these turtles to do what's natural, ... but if you have to prevent a large amount of mortality, you have to make tough decisions."
Saturday, June 26, 2010
USF scientists find long line of oil 6 inches under the sand at Pensacola Beach
The sugar-sand beach here appeared cleaner Thursday, after workers picked up tar balls overnight with shovels and nets. By noon they had collected 44,955 pounds of tar balls and oil material, according to the Escambia County Emergency Operations Center.But a University of South Florida geologist made a grim discovery Thursday morning, 24 hours after the worst oil onslaught in Florida so far.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/usf-scientists-find-long-line-of-oil-6-inches-under-the-sand-at-pensacola/1104804
http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/usf-scientists-find-long-line-of-oil-6-inches-under-the-sand-at-pensacola/1104804
PLANS TO EVACUATE TAMPA BAY
Gulf Oil Spill 2010: Plans to evacuate Tampa Bay area are in place.As FEMA and other government agencies prepare for what is now being called the worst oil spill disaster in history, plans to evacuate the Tampa Bay area are in place.The plans would be announed in the event of a controlled burn of surface oil in the Gulf of Mexico, or if wind or other conditions are expected to take toxic fumes through Tampa Bay.This practice has been used by the US Forestry service, when fire and smoke threaten the health and well being of people.The elderly and those with respiratory problems would be more susceptible to health risks, in the event of a controlled burn.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/06/23/florida-gulf-oil-spill-plans-to-evacuate-tampa-bay-area-are-in-place/
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/06/23/florida-gulf-oil-spill-plans-to-evacuate-tampa-bay-area-are-in-place/
Saturday, June 19, 2010
DEATH BY FIRE IN THE GULF (Via HerpDigest)
DEATH BY FIRE IN THE GULF -SO-CALLED BURN BOXES ARE TORCHING OIL FROM THE WATER'S SURFACE AT THE SACRIFICE OF TURTLES, CRABS, SEA SLUGS AND OTHER SEA LIFE.
By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times, June 17, 2010
Reporting from the Gulf of Mexico -
Here on the open ocean, 12 miles from ground zero of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the gulf is hovering between life and death.
The large strands of sargassum seaweed atop the ocean are normally noisy with birds and thick with crustaceans, small fish and sea turtles. But now this is a silent panorama, heavy with the smell of oil.
There are no birds. The seaweed is soaked in rust-colored crude and chemical dispersant. It is devoid of life except for the occasional juvenile sea turtle, speckled with oil and clinging to the only habitat it knows. Thick ribbons of oil spread out through the sea like the strips in egg flower soup, gorgeous and deadly.
A few dead fish float in the water, though dolphin-fish, tuna, flying fish and the occasional shark can still be seen swimming near the surface, threading their way through the wavy, sometimes iridescent gobs of crude.
"This is devastating. I mean literally, it's terrible. All this should be pretty much blue water, and - look at it. It just looks bad," said Kevin Aderhold, a longtime charter fishing captain who has been taking a team of researchers deep into the gulf every day to rescue oil-soaked sea turtles.
"When this first happened, a lot of us were like, they'll cap that thing and we'll be out fishing again. Now reality's set in. Look around you. This is long-term. This'll be here for-ev-er."
And then it gets worse. When the weather is calm and the sea is placid, ships trailing fireproof booms corral the black oil, the coated seaweed and whatever may be caught in it, and torch it into hundred-foot flames, sending plumes of smoke skyward in ebony mushrooms. This patch of unmarked ocean gets designated over the radio as "the burn box."
Wildlife researchers operating here, in the regions closest to the spill, are witnesses to a disquieting choice: Protecting shorebirds, delicate marshes and prime tourist beaches along the coast by stopping the oil before it moves ashore has meant the largely unseen sacrifice of some wildlife out at sea, poisoned with chemical dispersants and sometimes boiled by the burning of spilled oil on the water's surface.
"It reflects the conventional wisdom of oil spills: If they just keep the oil out at sea, the harm will be minimal. And I disagree with that completely," said Blair Witherington, a research scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission who has been part of the sea turtle rescue mission.
By unhappy coincidence, the same convergences of ocean currents that create long mats of sargassum - nurturing countless crabs, slugs and surface fish that are crucial food for turtles, birds and larger fish - also coalesce the oil, creating islands of death sometimes 30 miles long.
"Most of the Gulf of Mexico is a desert. Nothing out there to live on. It's all concentrated in these oases," Witherington said.
"Ordinarily, the sargassum is a nice, golden color. You shake it, and all kinds of life comes out: shrimp, crabs, worms, sea slugs. The place is really just bursting with life. It's the base of the food chain. And these areas we're seeing here by comparison are quite dead," he said.
"It's amazing. We'll see flying fish, and they'll land in this stuff and just get stuck."
Hardest hit of all, it appears, are the sea jellies and snails that drift along the gulf's surface, some of the most important food sources for sea turtles.
"These animals drift into the oil lines and it's like flies on fly paper," Witherington said. "As far as I can tell, that whole fauna is just completely wiped out."
The turtle rescue team sets out at 6 a.m. in the muggy warm stillness of the harbor at Venice, La. The researchers move into the open gulf about an hour later, past a line of shrimp boats deputized to lay boom along the coastal marshes.
Closer to the Deepwater Horizon site, the water takes on a foreboding gray pallor tinged with a rainbow-like sheen. Soon, the oil begins swirling around the boat and the seascape smells like an auto mechanic's garage.
Strewn among the oil and seaweed are human flotsam: an orange hardhat, a pie pan, a wire coat hanger, yellow margarine-tub lids, a black-and-green ashtray. The crew has found papers - long at sea on global currents - bearing inscriptions in Spanish, Arabic, Greek and Chinese.
The only sound that breaks the stillness is the deep thrum of the motors of the large charter boat and a small skiff carrying the turtle researchers. From dawn until nearly dusk, across sargassum islands that normally are alive with birds looking for crabs and snails - bridal terns, shearwaters, storm-petrels - only one bird is seen.
"What's amazing is there's so little bird life out here right now. Either they've moved on, or the oiling has had a tremendous impact," said Kate Sampson, a researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who is part of the turtle rescue team.
"We saw a few yesterday. We saw a few laughing gulls fly by. They were oiled, but they could still fly. And we saw a northern gannet, a diving bird. It was oiled too," she said. "I can only imagine that the birds left because the dining hall is closed."
Soon, the rising towers of the Discoverer Enterprise drill ship, which is collecting oil and gas from the damaged well, and the tall rigs boring two relief wells miles into the seabed appear through the haze. A flare of burning natural gas is silhouetted against the gray hull of the ship.
The Premier Explorer, which is helping coordinate cleanup operations at the broken well, announces the day's burn box: A 500-square-mile field within which 16 controlled burns will be conducted.
In the days since the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, more than 5 million gallons of oil have been consumed in more than 165 burns.
"The real issue is to stop this thing at the source, do maximum skimming, in-situ burning - deal with it as far off shore as possible, and do everything you can to keep it from getting to shore, because once it's into the marshes, quite frankly, I think we would all agree there's no good solution at that point," Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen told reporters last week.
But the burn operations have proved particularly excruciating for the turtle researchers, who have been trolling the same lines of oil and seaweed as the boom boats, hoping to pull turtles out of the sargassum before they are burned alive.
Much of the wildlife here seems doomed in any case. "We've seen the oil covering the turtles so thick they could barely move, could hardly lift their heads," Witherington said. "I won't pretend to know which is the nastiest."
Yet in one case, the crew had to fall back and watch as skimmers gathered up a long line of sargassum that hadn't yet been searched - and which they believe was full of turtles that might have been saved.
"In a perfect world, they'd gather up the material and let us search it before they burned it," Witherington said. "But that connection hasn't been made. The lines of communication aren't there."
The smoke starts rising on the horizon at midday. The two boats carrying the researchers head in different directions, hoping to find and rescue a few more turtles before their mission wraps up. They find 11, all of them heavily speckled with oil.
Each day, the chances of rescues grow smaller. That there are still so many left stranded in the oil without food is a small miracle. Their long-term chances "are zero," Witherington said.
"Turtles just take a long time to die."
By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times, June 17, 2010
Reporting from the Gulf of Mexico -
Here on the open ocean, 12 miles from ground zero of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the gulf is hovering between life and death.
The large strands of sargassum seaweed atop the ocean are normally noisy with birds and thick with crustaceans, small fish and sea turtles. But now this is a silent panorama, heavy with the smell of oil.
There are no birds. The seaweed is soaked in rust-colored crude and chemical dispersant. It is devoid of life except for the occasional juvenile sea turtle, speckled with oil and clinging to the only habitat it knows. Thick ribbons of oil spread out through the sea like the strips in egg flower soup, gorgeous and deadly.
A few dead fish float in the water, though dolphin-fish, tuna, flying fish and the occasional shark can still be seen swimming near the surface, threading their way through the wavy, sometimes iridescent gobs of crude.
"This is devastating. I mean literally, it's terrible. All this should be pretty much blue water, and - look at it. It just looks bad," said Kevin Aderhold, a longtime charter fishing captain who has been taking a team of researchers deep into the gulf every day to rescue oil-soaked sea turtles.
"When this first happened, a lot of us were like, they'll cap that thing and we'll be out fishing again. Now reality's set in. Look around you. This is long-term. This'll be here for-ev-er."
And then it gets worse. When the weather is calm and the sea is placid, ships trailing fireproof booms corral the black oil, the coated seaweed and whatever may be caught in it, and torch it into hundred-foot flames, sending plumes of smoke skyward in ebony mushrooms. This patch of unmarked ocean gets designated over the radio as "the burn box."
Wildlife researchers operating here, in the regions closest to the spill, are witnesses to a disquieting choice: Protecting shorebirds, delicate marshes and prime tourist beaches along the coast by stopping the oil before it moves ashore has meant the largely unseen sacrifice of some wildlife out at sea, poisoned with chemical dispersants and sometimes boiled by the burning of spilled oil on the water's surface.
"It reflects the conventional wisdom of oil spills: If they just keep the oil out at sea, the harm will be minimal. And I disagree with that completely," said Blair Witherington, a research scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission who has been part of the sea turtle rescue mission.
By unhappy coincidence, the same convergences of ocean currents that create long mats of sargassum - nurturing countless crabs, slugs and surface fish that are crucial food for turtles, birds and larger fish - also coalesce the oil, creating islands of death sometimes 30 miles long.
"Most of the Gulf of Mexico is a desert. Nothing out there to live on. It's all concentrated in these oases," Witherington said.
"Ordinarily, the sargassum is a nice, golden color. You shake it, and all kinds of life comes out: shrimp, crabs, worms, sea slugs. The place is really just bursting with life. It's the base of the food chain. And these areas we're seeing here by comparison are quite dead," he said.
"It's amazing. We'll see flying fish, and they'll land in this stuff and just get stuck."
Hardest hit of all, it appears, are the sea jellies and snails that drift along the gulf's surface, some of the most important food sources for sea turtles.
"These animals drift into the oil lines and it's like flies on fly paper," Witherington said. "As far as I can tell, that whole fauna is just completely wiped out."
The turtle rescue team sets out at 6 a.m. in the muggy warm stillness of the harbor at Venice, La. The researchers move into the open gulf about an hour later, past a line of shrimp boats deputized to lay boom along the coastal marshes.
Closer to the Deepwater Horizon site, the water takes on a foreboding gray pallor tinged with a rainbow-like sheen. Soon, the oil begins swirling around the boat and the seascape smells like an auto mechanic's garage.
Strewn among the oil and seaweed are human flotsam: an orange hardhat, a pie pan, a wire coat hanger, yellow margarine-tub lids, a black-and-green ashtray. The crew has found papers - long at sea on global currents - bearing inscriptions in Spanish, Arabic, Greek and Chinese.
The only sound that breaks the stillness is the deep thrum of the motors of the large charter boat and a small skiff carrying the turtle researchers. From dawn until nearly dusk, across sargassum islands that normally are alive with birds looking for crabs and snails - bridal terns, shearwaters, storm-petrels - only one bird is seen.
"What's amazing is there's so little bird life out here right now. Either they've moved on, or the oiling has had a tremendous impact," said Kate Sampson, a researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who is part of the turtle rescue team.
"We saw a few yesterday. We saw a few laughing gulls fly by. They were oiled, but they could still fly. And we saw a northern gannet, a diving bird. It was oiled too," she said. "I can only imagine that the birds left because the dining hall is closed."
Soon, the rising towers of the Discoverer Enterprise drill ship, which is collecting oil and gas from the damaged well, and the tall rigs boring two relief wells miles into the seabed appear through the haze. A flare of burning natural gas is silhouetted against the gray hull of the ship.
The Premier Explorer, which is helping coordinate cleanup operations at the broken well, announces the day's burn box: A 500-square-mile field within which 16 controlled burns will be conducted.
In the days since the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, more than 5 million gallons of oil have been consumed in more than 165 burns.
"The real issue is to stop this thing at the source, do maximum skimming, in-situ burning - deal with it as far off shore as possible, and do everything you can to keep it from getting to shore, because once it's into the marshes, quite frankly, I think we would all agree there's no good solution at that point," Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen told reporters last week.
But the burn operations have proved particularly excruciating for the turtle researchers, who have been trolling the same lines of oil and seaweed as the boom boats, hoping to pull turtles out of the sargassum before they are burned alive.
Much of the wildlife here seems doomed in any case. "We've seen the oil covering the turtles so thick they could barely move, could hardly lift their heads," Witherington said. "I won't pretend to know which is the nastiest."
Yet in one case, the crew had to fall back and watch as skimmers gathered up a long line of sargassum that hadn't yet been searched - and which they believe was full of turtles that might have been saved.
"In a perfect world, they'd gather up the material and let us search it before they burned it," Witherington said. "But that connection hasn't been made. The lines of communication aren't there."
The smoke starts rising on the horizon at midday. The two boats carrying the researchers head in different directions, hoping to find and rescue a few more turtles before their mission wraps up. They find 11, all of them heavily speckled with oil.
Each day, the chances of rescues grow smaller. That there are still so many left stranded in the oil without food is a small miracle. Their long-term chances "are zero," Witherington said.
"Turtles just take a long time to die."
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Spawning Habitat of Bluefin Tuna in Gulf of Mexico: Critical Area Intersects Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
ScienceDaily (May 31, 2010) — Electronic tagging and fisheries catch data have revealed pronounced differences in preferred habitat of Atlantic bluefin tuna and yellowfin tuna in the Gulf of Mexico, despite their close ancestry, according to a new study published today in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE. Bluefin tuna return to the same regions of the Gulf of Mexico during spring months to spawn. The bluefin are selecting a particular habitat along the slope waters of the Gulf of Mexico, which has unique oceanographic properties that are predictable and can be seen from satellites. Yellowfin tuna are more widely distributed throughout the warm Gulf waters and occupy the region throughout the year.
"The bluefins' habitat requirements are relatively exact so we can predict with reasonable accuracy where bluefin tuna are likely to be spawning at any given time based on oceanographic data continually being gathered by satellites and weather buoys," said lead author Steven Teo of the University of California at Davis. "This is in stark contrast to yellowfin tuna, which exhibit much more generalized environmental preferences." The fidelity to breeding areas over time detected in this study is reminiscent of salmon returning to their natal stream to spawn.
Bluefin tuna are among the most valuable fish in global markets. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT, http://www.iccat.int) currently manages the Atlantic bluefin tuna as two distinct populations, with western Atlantic spawners of the Gulf of Mexico forming a distinct population genetically from the eastern spawners of the Mediterranean Sea. The western Atlantic stock has suffered a significant decline in spawning stock biomass since 1950, and a 20-year rebuilding plan has failed to revive the population or the North American fishery. The failure of the Gulf of Mexico spawning population to rebuild, as well as the scope of illegal and under-reported catches -- particularly in the Mediterranean Sea -- are of such major concern that the species was recently considered by the United Nations for endangered species listing in March of 2010.
Targeted bluefin fishing has been banned in the Gulf for over twenty years, but bluefin continue to be captured accidentally on pelagic longlines, often resulting in mortality. The study shows that bluefin tuna are captured in the Gulf of Mexico from January through June each year, and the highest pelagic longline catch rates are in April and May, during the bluefin spawning season.
The authors compared environmental preferences and spatio-temporal distributions of bluefin and yellowfin tuna as revealed by pelagic longline catch rates and scientific tagging cruise conducted by the Stanford University and Monterey Bay Aquarium team coupled with oceanographic data sets. Drawing on these data, a model was developed to determine the relative probability of catching bluefin and yellowfin tuna at a given place and time. This model showed that there are two major hotspot regions within the Gulf where bycatch occurs -- one in the eastern Gulf of Mexico to the north of the Loop Current, and the other in the western Gulf of Mexico. Both regions are along the slope where the shallow continental shelf depth changes rapidly to the deep sea. It is within these hotspots that bluefin tuna prefer to spawn in circular, swirling water masses called "cyclonic eddies." These eddies are more productive and slightly cooler than surrounding warm Gulf ocean currents. Yellowfin tuna, however, are much more widely dispersed throughout the Gulf of Mexico throughout the year.
These findings indicate that it would be possible to utilize spatial management techniques to protect western Atlantic bluefin tuna on their breeding grounds in the Gulf of Mexico without compromising the yellowfin tuna fishery, which could be carried out in other areas during the critical bluefin tuna breeding times.
Unfortunately, these findings also give cause for concern in light of the recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill. "Both catch data and electronic tags indicate the Gulf of Mexico along the continental shelf is the preferred habitat of this majestic fish. I think it is amazing how precisely we can predict where the bluefin are. Unfortunately their spawning habitat overlaps the Deepwater Horizon oil accident site, and the timing of the spill coincides with the time when we expect them to be there spawning" said senior author Dr. Barbara Block of Stanford University.
Funding for this study was provided by the Lenfest Ocean Program, the Tag-A-Giant Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the Disney Foundation.
"The bluefins' habitat requirements are relatively exact so we can predict with reasonable accuracy where bluefin tuna are likely to be spawning at any given time based on oceanographic data continually being gathered by satellites and weather buoys," said lead author Steven Teo of the University of California at Davis. "This is in stark contrast to yellowfin tuna, which exhibit much more generalized environmental preferences." The fidelity to breeding areas over time detected in this study is reminiscent of salmon returning to their natal stream to spawn.
Bluefin tuna are among the most valuable fish in global markets. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT, http://www.iccat.int) currently manages the Atlantic bluefin tuna as two distinct populations, with western Atlantic spawners of the Gulf of Mexico forming a distinct population genetically from the eastern spawners of the Mediterranean Sea. The western Atlantic stock has suffered a significant decline in spawning stock biomass since 1950, and a 20-year rebuilding plan has failed to revive the population or the North American fishery. The failure of the Gulf of Mexico spawning population to rebuild, as well as the scope of illegal and under-reported catches -- particularly in the Mediterranean Sea -- are of such major concern that the species was recently considered by the United Nations for endangered species listing in March of 2010.
Targeted bluefin fishing has been banned in the Gulf for over twenty years, but bluefin continue to be captured accidentally on pelagic longlines, often resulting in mortality. The study shows that bluefin tuna are captured in the Gulf of Mexico from January through June each year, and the highest pelagic longline catch rates are in April and May, during the bluefin spawning season.
The authors compared environmental preferences and spatio-temporal distributions of bluefin and yellowfin tuna as revealed by pelagic longline catch rates and scientific tagging cruise conducted by the Stanford University and Monterey Bay Aquarium team coupled with oceanographic data sets. Drawing on these data, a model was developed to determine the relative probability of catching bluefin and yellowfin tuna at a given place and time. This model showed that there are two major hotspot regions within the Gulf where bycatch occurs -- one in the eastern Gulf of Mexico to the north of the Loop Current, and the other in the western Gulf of Mexico. Both regions are along the slope where the shallow continental shelf depth changes rapidly to the deep sea. It is within these hotspots that bluefin tuna prefer to spawn in circular, swirling water masses called "cyclonic eddies." These eddies are more productive and slightly cooler than surrounding warm Gulf ocean currents. Yellowfin tuna, however, are much more widely dispersed throughout the Gulf of Mexico throughout the year.
These findings indicate that it would be possible to utilize spatial management techniques to protect western Atlantic bluefin tuna on their breeding grounds in the Gulf of Mexico without compromising the yellowfin tuna fishery, which could be carried out in other areas during the critical bluefin tuna breeding times.
Unfortunately, these findings also give cause for concern in light of the recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill. "Both catch data and electronic tags indicate the Gulf of Mexico along the continental shelf is the preferred habitat of this majestic fish. I think it is amazing how precisely we can predict where the bluefin are. Unfortunately their spawning habitat overlaps the Deepwater Horizon oil accident site, and the timing of the spill coincides with the time when we expect them to be there spawning" said senior author Dr. Barbara Block of Stanford University.
Funding for this study was provided by the Lenfest Ocean Program, the Tag-A-Giant Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the Disney Foundation.
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