Will Sea Turtles Be The Big Victims of the Gulf Oil Spill?

Kemp's Ridley sea turtle trudges through beach, photo by krembo1

The sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico may turn out to be the ones in the most trouble from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Even though they haven't shown signs of oil, they may be ingesting it.

Dr. Mike Ziccardi, a veterinarian who runs the Oiled Wildlife Care Network and is handling all the non-bird oiled wildlife in the gulf, now says they're getting a high number of dead turtles, 156 so far. Mostly juveniles and mostly the rarest kind, Kemp's Ridley, TampaBay.com reports. The dead sea turtles "are in higher numbers than you would expect," he told Reuters.

No one is sure what killed the turtles. There was Dr. Ziccardi was initially very cautious, noting that turtles just wash up dead this time of year and that they showed no oil. Some blamed shrimpers. OnEarth, the NRDC blog, says that Sea Turtle Restoration Project (STRP) estimates fishermen kill 25,000 sea turtles each year.  And that's way down from a decade ago, before the mandated Turtle Exclusion Device, when 86,000 were wiped out.

Now Dr. Ziccardi he's contemplating something more insidious: that they are injesting the oil but it doesn't show up on the outside. "Marine mammals and sea turtles are much more likely to have less apparent external exposure and greater internal exposure than avian species," he wrote on his blog. Animals that don't show oil can have internal oil damage. Sometimes you can see it in their feces but others have "sub-apparent internal exposure." You can find that by looking for microscopic toxin damage or chemical analysis, he says.

Kemp's Ridley's are critically endangered and only found in the gulf and on the east coast. They're carnivorous bottom-feeders, exactly what you don't want to be in this oil spill. It's the smallest sea turtle, nests during the day and en masse at sites called arribadas. In 1947 42,000 nested in one day near Rancho Nuevo, Mexico. That fell to 5,00, but has climbed up to 7,866 in 2006. They nest at Padre Island, TX, too, but only 127 nests were counted in 2007.

A big set back was a 1979 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Ixtoc I,  that's a lot like Deepwater Horizon. the Blow Out Preventer failed. The spill was slow moving. Relatively few dead animals were found. Though the direct link was never found, the Times says, the population went way down.

All seven species of sea turtle are either endangered or threatened and five live in the Gulf of Mexico, the Parks Service says. The other big threat to sea turtles is people stealing the eggs and eating the females when they go ashore to lay them. It's mostly outlawed, but just this week Mexican cops caught two guys with 5,800 eggs near Acapulco.  In Denespar, Indonesia, cops confiscated 71 huge, endangered green sea turtles about to be served as food in a stall, the AP reports. The Jakarta Post says they also just caught men smuggling 12,000 turtle eggs in cigarette cartons aboard a ferry.

Looks like we might not have oiled birds being soaped up for camera, but something much slower and grimmer.

Where to Go See Turtles in the Wild

Where to Go See Animals Down South

Your Hair Probably Isn't Going to Clean Up the Oil Spill--and Neither Is Your Dog's or Alpaca's

Hundreds of volunteers are assembling booms at Boom B Qs

Funny thing about all that hair and fur being shorn around the country to great fanfare to sop up the BP gulf oil spill: nobody wants it. Or at least the people actually cleaning up the oil say it isn't as good as the store-bought booms they're using. But that hasn't stopped people from sending it in and reporters from extensively covering the sweet but so far futile gesture.

Last week the official spill Facebook page, Deepwater Horizon Response,  put out this deeply unpopular message:

We are not using hair booms at this time but are using commercially available sorbent boom when possible. In a February 2010 NOAA field test, commercial sorbent boom absorbed more oil and much less water than hair boom. Widespread deployment of hair boom could exacerbate the debris problem. There is adequate supply of ...sorbent boom for now, but we do encourage ideas of alternative solutions by calling (281) 366-5511.

The main group amassing hair, Matter of Trust, does some amazing recycling and has been championing and testing hairmats since at least 2007. The hair, stuffed inside pantyhose, really seems to work. But even they say only the hazmat crews should install and remove the booms. They're taking the rejection graciously, but proceeding full steam ahead:

BP hasn't spent a lot of time thinking about the properties of hair, fur, wool and fleece. And they're a little busy right now.... Matter of Trust is saying officially: "At this time, we are simply providing volunteers the opportunity to make hair boom and stockpile them all along the Gulf Coast, in case BP needs them." We're calling it Plan H (H is for Hair).

But let none of that get in the way of a "local people helping in international crisis" story.

Even the Canadians and horses are getting in on it. Well after the word that booms aren't being used, alpacas are still getting shaved and National Geographic is still doing a story on it. The group collected 10,000 pounds of alpaca hair. Hair is coming from Soho, Petco, and fans of Rachel Maddow. The Miami Herald and  About.com are still pushing haircuts. ZooToo has a how-to story on donating your pet's hair. Some stories have a teeny disclaimer on the end--oh, yeah, this may not work or be used sort of thing.

All of this is a sweet gesture, like donating blood after a catastrophe. It's wonderful to see so many people worried about the turtles, pelicans, dolphins and manatees their hair might help. But is it doing any good?

Where to Go to See Wildlife
Where to Go See Wildlife Down South

RESCUE GROUPS

• International Bird Rescue Research Center, based in California, started when after 1971 spill by the Golden Gate Bridge killed 96% of birds collected. 
• Tri-State Bird is based in Delaware and handles spills up and down the east coast. They offers training for general bird care and oil spills. Tri-State started after a 1976 spill in the Delaware River.
• Oiled Wildlife Care Network would help manage the turtles and marine mammals potentially hurt by the spill. Also based in California, the center has posted channels for volunteers in different states.

 PREVIOUS STORIES ON THE DEEPWATER HORIZON SPILL

• The Price of All This Cleaning Up Oiled Wildlife?
• Valdez: A Comparison for Wildlife 
• Media Upset Not to Find All Those Oil-Soaked Birds
• How Will the Gulf's Dead Zone Impact the Oil Spill?
• Wildlife Rescuers in Gulf Overwhelmed--By Volunteers, Not Patients
• Groups Recruiting Volunteers to Clean up to 400 Wildlife Species at Risk From Oil Spill
  
• Pelicans, Otters, Manatees Could be Hurt by Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
  
• Several Manatees Swimming Toward Danger and the Oil Spill; Mobile May Release Dammed Waters
  

Valdez: A Comparison for Wildlife

How does the Deepwater Horizon oil spill compare to the historical monster of Exxon Valdez, by which we judge all oil disasters? How long will this go on?


We went back to the records of Valdez to look at its size and what we might lay ahead.

•  In the Valdez spill Scientific American reports that 2,000 sea otters, 302 harbor seals and about 250,000 seabirds died in the first few days. So far we have only 2 birds in care that I know of.
•  Rescuers retrieved a total of 36,471 carcasses and captured 1,630 live birds, the IBRRC reports.
• The Valdez spill was March 24, 1989. The last wildlife rehab center closed September 6 of that year. The Deepwater Horizon spill was on April 22, 2009. By that measure, rehabbers will be on the scene until early October.
• By the 10th day of the Valdez oil spill, rescuers were finding 180 oiled birds per square mile, the Coast Guard reported.
• The oil spread so far in Prince William Sound that rescuers had to set up four wildlife care centers. They've already set up three down south. There are Oiled Bird Rescue Centers in Fort Jackson, Louisiana, Theodore, Alabama and Pensacola, Florida.
• How long will it take the wildlife to recover? Here's the really scary part. They're still digging up oil in Valdez and some species are still recovering.

Where to Go to See Wildlife
Where to Go See Wildlife Down South

RESCUE GROUPS

• International Bird Rescue Research Center, based in California, started when after 1971 spill by the Golden Gate Bridge killed 96% of birds collected. 
• Tri-State Bird is based in Delaware and handles spills up and down the east coast. They offers training for general bird care and oil spills. Tri-State started after a 1976 spill in the Delaware River.
• Oiled Wildlife Care Network would help manage the turtles and marine mammals potentially hurt by the spill. Also based in California, the center has posted channels for volunteers in different states.

 PREVIOUS STORIES ON THE DEEPWATER HORIZON SPILL

 

• Media Upset Not to Find All Those Oil-Soaked Birds We Were Expecting

•  How Will the Gulf's Dead Zone Impact the Oil Spill?
•  Wildlife Rescuers in Gulf Overwhelmed--By Volunteers, Not Patients

• Groups Recruiting Volunteers to Clean up to 400 Wildlife Species at Risk From Oil Spill

• Pelicans, Otters, Manatees Could be Hurt by Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

•  Several Manatees Swimming Toward Danger and the Oil Spill; Mobile May Release Dammed Waters

Where Are All Those Oil-Soaked Birds We Were Expecting?

One peculiar thing about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill so far: hardly any wildlife covered in oil. The lack of  oiled birds has mystified rescuers and exasperated the media. TV networks are clamoring for images, showing clip files and giving the impression that tons of animals are showing up hurt. That's not so--at least not yet.

Mike Ziccardi, a vet and director of the Oiled Wildlife Care Network,  says on the OWCN blog that he got into a spat with "a fairly irate reporter from a major national news outlet" who demanded video access to the necropsy (animal autopsy) of some sea turtles. The network were desperate for dead turtle images even though the turtles didn't show initial signs of oiling and, as Ziccardi pointed out, were in found in a time and place typical of stranded turtles. (The other big threat to turtles is shrimp boats, Wallace Nichols from Grupo Tortuguero points out.)

Keith Olbmermann started a broadcast this week in ominous tone about "as dead jellyfish begin to wash up on the Mississippi coast." Dead jellyfish might be the one bright spot of the oil spill, given that the Gulf Dead Zone has caused a plague of jellyfish in the gulf.

A brown pelican is only second bird to be treated. Photo by IBRRC

Apparently California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger so expected oiled wildlife images that he dreamed some up. He just announced that he was withdrawing support for drilling off California's shores: "I see on TV, the birds drenched in oil, the fishermen out of work, the massive oil spill, oil slick destroying our precious ecosystem," he said at a press conference.


Both Schwartzenegger's descion and the lack of injured animals is fantastic, of course. Right now, nearly two weeks into what may be the worst oil spill in U.S. history, exactly two birds are in treatment. There's a northern gannet and this brown pelican. They're going to be media stars, these two.

Ziccardi is mystified by the lack of oiled animals. By this time in an oil spill, he says, "wildlife field operations are in full swing, the largest number of animals are being (or have been) collected, and facilities are bustling with activity." He doesn't know what to make of this lack of animal injury: "Normally I would be overjoyed at this lack of overt animal impact. No, overjoyed is a significant understatement ... but is this lull what we should expect in the days to come, or is the Sword of Damocles really about to come crashing down?"

That's a question all of us are asking. We've been told that the oil spill was on the verge of hitting the shore since last Friday morning. I'm thrilled it hasn't fouled beaches, wetlands and wildlife, but how is it not? Where is the oil going?

Ziccardi wonders if the oil dispersant chemicals are keeping the oil from the surface--where it would do the most damage to birds and marine mammals--but leaving it in the water where it will do long-term, hidden damage. Especially to clam beds. He uses my favorite word of the oil spill: BIOMAGNIFY. That means basically get eaten by the bottom of the food chain, concentrate there, then work their way up the food chain.  Kind of like mercury.

Where to Go to See Wildlife
Where to Go See Wildlife Down South

RESCUE GROUPS

• International Bird Rescue Research Center, based in California, started when after 1971 spill by the Golden Gate Bridge killed 96% of birds collected. 
• Tri-State Bird is based in Delaware and handles spills up and down the east coast. They offers training for general bird care and oil spills. Tri-State started after a 1976 spill in the Delaware River.
• Oiled Wildlife Care Network would help manage the turtles and marine mammals potentially hurt by the spill. Also based in California, the center has posted channels for volunteers in different states.

 PREVIOUS STORIES ON THE DEEPWATER HORIZON SPILL

• 
  

  Wildlife Rescuers in Gulf Overwhelmed--By Volunteers, Not Patients

•  How Will the Gulf's Dead Zone Impact the Oil Spill?
• 
  

  Groups Recruiting Volunteers to Clean up to 400 Wildlife Species at Risk From Oil Spill

• 
  

  Pelicans, Otters, Manatees Could be Hurt by Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

• 
  

   Several Manatees Swimming Toward Danger and the Oil Spill; Mobile May Release Dammed Waters

Wildlife Rescuers in Gulf Overwhelmed--By Volunteers, Not Patients

Oiled gull in CA in 2007 by Ingrid Taylar. Not many oiled birds seen yet in the gulf.

So far only a single bird, a Northern Gannett, has shown up oiled from the massive Deepwater Horizon spill. Wildlife rescuers and nonetheless overwhelmed--by all the untrained human volunteers.

As the potential for the spill gets bigger, the big wildlife groups are contemplating holding training classes to equip the would-be volunteers, says Kai Williams, executive director of the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council.


Right now several groups are taking in information from potential volunteers.  The National Wildlife Federation is directing people to sign up with the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana.

 "If you have the ability to restain an animal, that's going to be huge, just the basic ability to hold an animal," says Williams. "They're getting a lot of untrained people, not wildlife rehabilitators, people who have never picked up a bird."

What makes planning the response so hard is no one knows how big this still-developing catastrophe is going to be or when and where a rush of injured animals will show up. Some contemplate that the Gulf Stream could wrap it around Florida. Some worry the spill could end up bigger than Valdez. Williams notes that fewer birds live in Valdez, but there are also turtles and marine mammals to worry about.

The northern gannet is being bathed, fed electrolytes and pepto bismal, but rough weather this weekend prevented picking up more patients. A caretaker told the AP that the bird came in brown, but should be white at its current age.


Nationally, three groups are known for their training in helping animals that have gotten coated in oil.

• International Bird Rescue Research Center, based in California, started when after 1971 spill by the Golden Gate Bridge killed 96% of birds collected. 
• Tri-State Bird is based in Delaware and handles spills up and down the east coast. They offers training for general bird care and oil spills. Tri-State started after a 1976 spill in the Delaware River.
• Oiled Wildlife Care Network would help manage the turtles and marine mammals potentially hurt by the spill. Also based in California, the center has posted channels for volunteers in different states.

Where to Go to See Wildlife
Where to Go See Wildlife Down South

How Will the Gulf's Dead Zone Impact the Oil Spill?

The Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico may collide with an area already bedeviled by environmental catastrophe, the infamous Dead Zone--an area of essentially no life or oxygen. So what happens when an inexorable oil slick meets and an undead patch of water?

The Gulf's Dead Zone is about 6,000 to 7,000 square miles, one of the biggest in the world, Microbial Life Educational Resources of Carleton College says. It's caused by fertilizer run-off in the Mississippi overfeeding algae. Phytoplankton gobble up the algae--and all the oxygen. Scientists call the areas hypoxia--or low oxygen. They can't support life.

The oil spill so far is smaller, about 1,800 square miles. So far.

Right now the dead zone is west of the Mississippi and the oil spill is east of it. The dead zone is mainly at the bottom, which is littered with phytoplankton carcasses. The oil is on top.

But Nancy N. Rabalais, Ph.D., executive director of Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium thinks they're likely to meet.

"If the winds continue from the southeast as is common this time of year, then the surface manifestation may move to the west of the Mississippi River delta and become a surface feature of the Louisiana area of hypoxia," says

Some seem to have fantasized that the oil burn off will end up cleaning up the dead zone. Not so, says Rabalais. "The burn would reduce the more volatile and toxic components," [in the oil] she says, but not burn off the algae.

The algae isn't going to slow the oil down, she says, but the oil may slow down the production of algae:

"The movement of the oil would not be affected by where the area of low oxygen may be. Algal production if the oil were to come into the low oxygen would probably be reduced in productivity because of the proximity of the oil."


The dead zone won't necessarily have cleared out the wildlife; it's too soon to tell, she says. While the dead zone is indeed dead to most sea life like plants and fish, birds and marine mammals pass through: "The area of low oxygen does not affect birds and marine mammals because they are air breathers and the marine mammals and turtles can reach the surface of the water for atmospheric air."

The impact she expects is the oil will calm that waters of the dead zone. There will be less oxygen transfer from surface air into surface waters. The waters will stratify. The oil would cut back on the production of phytoplankton at the surface. And the oil and dead zone could pinch in on organisms caught between the top and bottom.


Perhaps the biggest impact is that the oil spill may decimate the wetlands--the wetlands the government had been building up in hopes of filtering water of fertilizers to short-circuit the dead zone. So much for that.