Defenders of Wildlife Blog

Two years later, the Gulf of Mexico is still reeling from BP's oil disaster.

“We’ve never seen anything like this before.” One hears this phrase far too often along the brilliant white beaches, dark bayous, and hidden back bays of the northern Gulf of Mexico. Despite falling off the precipice of media attention, people in the Gulf have not forgotten what happened here in spring of 2010. Even if they tried, nature would keep sending them—and the rest of us—constant reminders.

Two years ago today, BP’s Deepwater Horizon well exploded, unleashing more than 200 million gallons of toxic crude oil into the Gulf. Combined with nearly 2 million gallons of chemical dispersant and 500,000 more tons of gaseous hydrocarbons, a mind-bending volume of pollutants were ultimately dumped into Gulf waters. By far the largest spill in U.S. history, the cumulative size of the surface slick alone was large enough to cover the entire state of Oklahoma.

So, what do we now know about the spill’s environmental impacts? It’s still too early to understand most of the damages (some caused by Alaska’s Exxon Valdez oil spill took a decade or more to detect), but what we already know is unsettling enough. Let’s begin with seafood, a major industry and economic driver in the Gulf. In 2008, the seafood industry drove a robust $5.5 billion economic engine for the region. Yet despite reopening the once-closed fishing zones, and disclaimers after the spill that Gulf seafood is safe, a scientific study found that Food and Drug Administration guidelines allowed up to 10,000 times too much contamination, and did not properly identify the true risks of the Gulf’s contaminated seafood to children and pregnant women.

Oiled pelicans were the most striking, but certainly not the only, wildlife to be impacted by the disaster.

If that were not enough, Gulf fishermen report shrimp without eyes, fish covered in open sores, clawless crabs, and other mutated and underdeveloped catch. Crabbers are harvesting 75 percent fewer crabs than in years before the spill, and the crabs they do catch are often dead, discolored, and riddled with holes or missing sections of their shells. In some places, shrimp and oyster harvests remain low, exacerbating the economic deprivation caused by the spill to Gulf residents.

And yet the impacts of the spill go even deeper into the Gulf ecosystem. Hydrocarbons from the Deepwater Horizon spill were first trapped in the ocean food chain through some of its tiniest members: zooplankton. Contaminated zooplankton were actually chemically fingerprinted with certainty back to origins from the Deepwater Horizon blowout. And since zooplankton serve as food for baby fish and shrimp, they help move oil contamination and pollutants up the food chain.

Do we yet know the full scope of harm from this oil spill? Hardly. Links between dolphin deaths and the spill are still being investigated. Since early 2010, an unusually high number of marine mammals — 580, mostly dolphins — stranded and died off the coast of Louisiana to Florida. The total number of marine birds killed by the Deepwater Horizon spill is yet to be tallied. Is there hope for recovery in the Gulf of Mexico? Sure. Did we learn our lessons? Apparently not. Despite the intentions to do better in the future after this unprecedented spill, the Oil Spill Commission gave only a summary grade of “B” to the administration, a “C+” to the oil industry, and a paltry “D” to Congress. If the continuing harm from this tragedy doesn’t teach us that the risks of drilling are simply too high, will we ever learn?

 Learn more:

See how Defenders is working to protect wildlife and natural habitats from the dangers of offshore drilling.

Watch an interview with Chris following his first trip to the Gulf post-Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.

A year and a half since BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, killing 11 people and initiating the worst environmental disaster the country has ever seen, the oil company is headed back into the Gulf of Mexico. That’s right. On Wednesday, the federal government gave BP approval to launch its first deep-water drilling since the disaster.

According to the Houston Chronicle, under the permit issued by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, the British oil giant has permission to begin drilling at its Kaskida field about 192 miles off the Louisiana coast. And not only do operations have the green light to begin immediately, but BP plans to drill the newly approved well in 6,034 feet of water – about 1,000 feet deeper than the Macondo well.

That wasn’t the oil giant’s only good news for the week. CNN Money said that on Monday, BP reported ”better-than-expected earnings” for this quarter, with profits nearly doubling from the same quarter last year, from $1.8 billion to $4.9 billion. The company’s net revenue increased by about 31% to $97.6 billion.

Recovery hasn’t come as easily to the Gulf, whose diverse wildlife and fragile habitats continue to feel the impacts of the toxic oil and chemical dispersants. Just today, researchers announced a potential tie between the BP oil disaster and the continued surge of dolphin deaths in the Gulf. A cluster of bacterial infections may be an indication of exposure to oil by the marine mammals, who have been dying in numbers far higher than normal.  The St. Petersburg Times reports that from March 2010 to last week, 580 bottlenose dolphins and sperm whales have died and washed ashore in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. The total for last year was 265.

That investigation is continuing, but one thing we do know for sure: as long as we continue to hand over our country’s treasured coasts and fragile waters to Big Oil, we can continue to expect tragedies like the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. Because if 205 million gallons of oil spewing into Gulf waters isn’t enough to teach us better than that, what is?

Learn more:

See how dangerous offshore drilling threatens wildlife and natural habitats.

Skipjack tuna

Birds are hardly the only marine life we see during this Gulf study. One morning out at sea I see a shiny, transparent piece of debris bobbing on a wave. Oh no, I think; it looks like plastic, of a size and appearance to pose a real danger to any sea turtles thinking to get an easy meal.

But it is entirely natural, a Portuguese man-of-war “jellyfish.” It has a body consisting of a translucent gas-filled, bladder-like float tinted pink, blue, or violet, part of which forms a crest which functions as a sail for drifting movement across the sea. Underneath this float is a cluster of polyps from which hang tentacles of up to 165 feet long. These pelagic colonial hydroids or hydrozoans are infamous for their very powerful, painful stings. One of the Gordon Gunter’s very own crew members was stung fiercely during a swim at the beach last week in Key West.

Our crew is fanatical about fish, and fishing. During daylight hours, we trail a line or two far behind the ship while it is underway, hoping to catch our lunch or supper. We are not disappointed. Mahi-mahi (also known as dolphin-fish or dorado) are our most frequent catch. The intense blue, yellow, and green colors of these predators are visible even when the fish is several feet below the ocean surface. In addition to those caught, it is not unusual to see two or three scattered around anything floating, a wooden board, a small plastic float, a patch of Sargassum weed.

Spinner dolphins

We also catch several wahoo, a torpedo-shaped member of the mackerel family highly regarded by many gourmets. Some wahoo have reached 8 feet in length, and weigh up to 180 pounds. Today we catch a small skip-jack tuna, a fish that schools up and roils the water during its feeding frenzies. And above those frenzies hover birds, numerous and diverse, hoping to seize a small fish being chased by the larger ones.

Although not tallied in large numbers, two of the three marine mammals we do see are species I’ve never seen before. In addition to the widespread bottlenose dolphin, we see a small pod of pan-tropical spotted dolphin, dashing in to playfully ride the bow wave of the ship. Compared to their larger cousins, the Atlantic spotted dolphin, the spots on this species are smaller, at times entirely absent, but their upper and lower jaws separated by thin white “lips” on their long beak confirm their identity. And one evening at dusk, another dolphin pod sneaks up on the Gunter from the stern. I notice a very long, erect dorsal fin, not as swept-backward as on most dolphins. Could it be? After one dolphin playfully breaches through the water, doing a double-axel role before splashing back down, there is no doubt: these are spinner dolphins, a species I have long wanted to see.

Leatherback turtle

Throughout our winter and spring surveys this year, we have seen very few sea turtles in the Gulf. But this day I am rewarded twice over. Not just one, but two huge leatherback turtles. This endangered species is the largest, deepest-diving, most migratory and wide-ranging of all sea turtles. Some leatherback turtles reach 2,000 pounds! One is so close to the ship that I can clearly see the large pink spot on the top if its head, each spot as unique and useful as our fingerprints for determining individual identity.

Learn more:

Stay tuned for more tales from the Gulf! Click here to read Chris’ other accounts of life at sea.

One year later, Defenders continues to fight for wildlife in the Gulf. Click here to learn more about what we’re doing and see what YOU can do to help!

These days, it isn’t only oil showing up on Gulf beaches. Last week brought a surge of stories on the high numbers of dead baby dolphins washing ashore in Gulf states.

As of Wednesday, the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies (IMMS) reported that as many as 30 dolphins have been found dead since January in Mississippi and Alabama, and 24 of them calves. The Sun Herald reported five dead calves found in Alabama in just one day.

Scientists are concerned about these abnormally high numbers. The number of dolphin strandings so far this year is already more than ten times greater than what it’s been the last two years. Also unusual is the timing of these deaths. Birthing season for dolphin typically begins later, in March. Clearly, something is wrong.

Although scientists have not ruled out causes such as extreme cold temperatures, many are looking to BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill last spring as a potential culprit. IMMS experts, joined by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), remain busy conducting autopsies. Hopefully, further testing will allow them to get to the bottom of this troubling phenomenon soon.

Learn more:

Click here for more information on the recent dolphin calf strandings.

See what YOU can do to help wildlife harmed by the Gulf oil disaster.

Alas, no snorkeling photos. But Alejandra Goyenechea’s week in Jamaica was time well spent for marine conservation. Here’s a recap from both meetings in Montego Bay last week to discuss protecting wildlife in the wider Caribbean region.

Alejandra puts on her game face for daylong meetings on marine conservation in the Caribbean last week.

• New marine sanctuary: “Agoa,” the mythical Amerindian goddess of the sea, is the name of a newly protected area for marine mammals near the French Antilles.  France contributed the sanctuary as part of the Marine Mammal Action Plan in order to bring attention to the importance of protecting dolphins and whales in the Caribbean.
• Taming the lionfish: Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW) countries in the Caribbean will be launching an initiative to curtail the invasive lionfish that has taken over fisheries throughout much of the region. Lionfish populations have been growing steadily up and down the Atlantic Coast, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean, where they have no natural predators and feast on other sea creatures. Some countries have offered a bounty for killed lionfish; others are urging gastronomes to eat them all.
• Raft of ratifications: A critical part of these international meetings is to come up with actionable plans that become legally binding. For that to happen, parties must sign on to various protocols before they can be enforced. There were several important ratifications in Jamaica that will help protect biodiversity and reducepollution:
  • Guyana ratified the Cartagena Convention and all three major protocols (SPAW, LBS and Oil Spill)
  • Bahamas ratified the Cartagena Convention and became the ninth party to ratify the LBS protocol, therefore entering the protocol into force.
    
    

    The conference hotel in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Notice the lack of conservation experts out enjoying the sunshine.

• Making island history: Two islands, formerly a part of Netherlands Antilles, became autonomous countries under the Kingdom of Netherlands. The implications are still unclear and perhaps trivial, as this Time story notes. Nevertheless, welcome Curacao and St. Maarten to (partial) statehood!
• Seafood faux pas: Alejandra reports disappointedly that her hotel in Jamaica served queen conch–a Caribbean mollusk that is often over-harvested, putting the future population at risk. The species currently has limited protections under Appendix II of CITES, which establishes an export quota for countries like Jamaica. Yet international trade in conch continues at unsustainable levels, highlighting the need for regional collaboration on conservation strategies. Needless to say, Alejandra passed on eating the conch.

Post by Shannon Miller, coordinator for Defenders’ Florida program.

On Saturday, August 21st, over 35 members and staff from Defenders of Wildlife and Ocean Conservancy met at the South Skyway Fishing Pier in Palmetto, Florida for another successful “Coastline Cleanup.” In less than four hours, participants collected over 2,000 pounds of marine debris and trash! A cleanup effort at the same site three months ago collected a similar amount.

Beach cleanups make a big difference for our community and our wildlife. Each year, hundreds of animals such as birds, sea turtles, manatees and dolphins are injured, maimed or killed by marine debris in the Tampa Bay area alone. Removing the debris from beaches and coastal waters is the best way to eliminate this deadly threat, and also prevents the debris from becoming hazardous material should it come into contact with oil – requiring a much more complicated and dangerous cleanup process.

We still do not know the extent of the harm that the millions of gallons of oil and toxic dispersants from the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster will have on our marine environment and wildlife. But by cleaning up the coastline now, we hope to give Gulf wildlife a fighting chance for survival. Thank you to all of our volunteers that came out on Saturday, we truly appreciate your help, without you this event would not be possible. We thank you and especially our wildlife thanks you!

Stay tuned for our next cleanup by checking the Event Calendar on the Defenders of Wildlife website and please make sure you are on our email list.

To find out how you can help protect wildlife in the Gulf no matter where you live, visit www.gulfoilspillrecovery.org.