Defenders of Wildlife Blog

NEWS: Some of the $1 billion BP announced it would release yesterday to help speed the cleanup and recovery of the Gulf of Mexico must go to expanding coastal wildlife refuges, according to a coalition of conservation groups.

The following are statements from Defenders of Wildlife and the National Wildlife Refuge Association:

“We’re encouraged to see BP make a billion dollar down payment on restoring the Gulf, but given that BP is seeking $40 billion from its corporate partners, it looks like BP agrees with us that the damage wreaked by this disaster will take far more than a billion dollars to fix,” said Timothy Male, Vice President of Conservation Policy with Defenders of Wildlife. “One of the very best investments for these dollars is expanding coastal wildlife refuges. These wetlands and beaches were on the frontlines of the damage, and they should be in the front of the line for relief.”

“These much-needed funds will help the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service begin restoring areas hard hit by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill,” said David Houghton, Vice-President of Conservation Programs with the National Wildlife Refuge Association. ”With hundreds of thousands of pounds of oil still being removed from Gulf Coast refuges, the need for habitat restoration dollars could not be greater.”

Background:

Funds from the Early Gulf Coast Restoration Agreement can be put to work immediately on projects to restore and protect habitat that will help oil-affected species begin recovering in the Gulf.  A few examples include:

In Louisiana, the $250 million barrier island restoration at Chandeleur Islands is a good candidate for funding. This 5,000-acre project at Breton National Wildlife Refuge would restore barrier island habitat and provide nesting habitat for affected species such as brown pelican, black skimmers, laughing gulls and royal and sandwich terns, and protection of back barrier tidal flats to promote establishment and growth of seagrass beds critical to wintering redhead ducks and other important estuarine species.

We’re encouraged to see BP make a billion dollar down payment on restoring the Gulf, but given that BP is seeking $40 billion from its corporate partners, it looks like BP agrees with us that the damage wreaked by this disaster will take far more than a billion dollars to fix.

In the Florida Panhandle, the $134 million Lake Wimico project would protect and restore 67,000 acres at St. Vincent National Wildlife Refuge. This acquisition would benefit two major estuarine systems, protecting an important bottlenose dolphin nursery and providing significant water quality benefits to oyster and scallop populations in Apalachicola and St. Joseph’s Bays.  This project would have significant long-term economic benefit on local economies because of its positive impact on the commercial fisheries resource.

Read the early restoration agreement.

On April 20, 2010, BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 of its workers and initiating a massive oil disaster that claimed the lives of thousands of birds, sea turtles, marine mammals and other wildlife. Now, a year later, the Gulf is still reeling from the disaster.

Oil continues to wash up on beaches and contaminate wildlife refuges. A slew of baby dolphin deaths could mean the loss of an entire generation of marine mammals, and a suspicious rise in sea turtle strandings could leave the survival of some species hanging in the balance. Coastal communities that rely on fishing and tourism have yet to get back on their feet. Recovery is only just beginning.

Defenders is fighting to protect sea turtles, pelicans, dolphins, and other wildlife still threatened by the Gulf oil disaster.

Shortly after the tragedy began to unfold, Defenders dispatched several wildlife experts, including our executive vice president Jamie Rappaport Clark, to the Gulf to bear witness to the tragedy. Our goal was to determine the best ways for us to help protect the wildlife and natural habitats that were harmed by the toxic oil and chemical dispersants that filled Gulf waters. With a year gone by and the long road to recovery stretched before us, we are committed to standing by the region every step of the way.

Here’s what Defenders is doing:

On the Ground

Over the past 10 months, Defenders’ chief scientist, Chris Haney, has been conducting what is now the most extensive sea bird survey ever performed in the Gulf of Mexico. The information collected on the water will revolutionize the way we measure the impacts of oil spills on birds in the future. Later during this year and into 2012, Dr. Haney will host training workshops to help countries in the Caribbean and Mexico anticipate and prepare for the damage an oil spill could cause to their migratory bird populations.

In Florida, Defenders is working to put a state constitutional amendment banning oil drilling within state waters on the ballot in an upcoming general election. By working to raise the 700,000 signatures needed to get the drilling ban on the ballot, we will empower the people of the state to protect their communities, livelihoods and unique wildlife from the dangers of offshore drilling.

Under the Water

From just below the surface all the way to the sea floor, the oil spill impacted wildlife throughout the Gulf of Mexico water column. Defenders’ coral scientist, Dan Thornhill, was in the middle of a deep-sea study when the disaster struck the Gulf. He and his team of researchers are now working to process data gathered a mile below the surface before, during and after the spill to see how deep-sea animals and ecosystems fared after exposure to massive amounts of oil and chemical dispersants. The situation looks bleak, but only by learning more about the unique creatures of the deep ocean can we know the full extent of the damage.

It will take years, maybe even decades, for the Gulf of Mexico to fully recover from this horrific oil disaster. But Defenders won’t give up until the job is finished.

In Washington

A year since the Deepwater Horizon blowout, Congress has yet to pass meaningful oil spill prevention and response legislation. Defenders has mobilized tens of thousands of caring wildlife supporters to send hundreds of thousands of messages to Congress and the Obama Administration with one goal: to prevent the next oil disaster and ensure protections for wildlife impacted by the Deepwater Horizon tragedy and other oil spills. We continue to be a voice for the wildlife and coastal communities in the Gulf region as we work to ensure that the risky offshore industry operates in the context of our national interest moving forward and accepts full financial liability for its mistakes.

In the Courts

Defenders is working to make sure that BP is held accountable for the devastation it caused to wildlife and natural habitats in the Gulf region, and to prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again. We are speaking up for the threatened and endangered wildlife illegally harmed as a result of this tragedy as well as seeking changes to the environmental review and permitting process for offshore drilling to make sure we predict, assess and stop environmental harm before it happens.

Planning Restoration

Defenders has been very active in the process to determine which efforts will be the most critical as the real work to rehabilitate and restore the Gulf region begins. We have attended Restoration Task Force meetings in the Gulf and are engaged in the Natural Resource Damage Assessment process, which is working to determine the full extent of harm done to natural resources in the region and how they may be properly restored.

It will take years, maybe even decades, for the Gulf of Mexico to fully recover from this horrific oil disaster. But Defenders won’t give up until the job is finished—our wildlife and wild places are too important.

Exxon Valdez spews oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound

It’s been 22 years since the world watched one of the worst environmental disasters of our time unfold in Alaska’s Prince William Sound. But the tragedy still isn’t over - tens of thousands of gallons of oil from that disaster still linger just below the surface of Prince William Sound’s beaches.

And in a cruel twist of irony, just this week two more oil crises have occurred, in the Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic Ocean.  In the Gulf, efforts to permanently plug a hurricane-damaged well resulted in the release of crude oil into Gulf waters for several hours. The Coast Guard is now investigating reports of a five-mile oil slick off of Lousiana’s Grand Isle.

In the South Atlantic, more than 800 tons of fuel oil has leaked from a freighter that ran aground on Nightingale Island, part of the Tristan da Cunha archipelago. The most remote inhabited island group in the world (1,700 miles from South Africa), the archipelago teems with biodiversity. About 200,000 penguins call the islands home, including nearly half of the world’s population of the endangered northern rockhopper penguins. New York Times reports that 20,000 penguins have already been oiled.

“Drilling in the Arctic puts a pristine marine environment at risk of long-term, and even permanent, damage. Unless we use the tragic lessons of past oil spill disasters to inform our policy decisions going forward, we will see the same tragedy played out on a different stage.”

These spills join the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico last year and last month’s spill in Norway’s Arctic waters. But despite this disastrous track record, the oil industry is pushing to drill in Alaska’s Arctic waters without the technology or know-how to clean up an oil spill in the Arctic’s extreme, icy conditions.

Keep drilling out of Alaska's Beaufort Sea (Photo courtesy of NOAA)

Defenders’ Richard Charter said, “Toxic oil continues to poison the rocky beaches of Prince William Sound 22 years after the Valdez spill. In Arctic waters, where cleanup technology doesn’t even exist yet, recovering from a similar disaster could take a century. Drilling in the Arctic puts a pristine marine environment at risk of long-term, and even permanent, damage. Unless we use the tragic lessons of past oil spill disasters to inform our policy decisions going forward, we will see the same tragedy played out on a different stage.”

What can YOU do?

You can help protect the fragile ecosystem off of Alaska’s coasts by calling Interior Secretary Ken Salazar TODAY to demand that he reject bad drilling plans and ensure that America’s Arctic Ocean is not sacrificed to line the pockets of Big Oil.

Learn more about how Defenders is working to protect America’s coasts and wildlife from the dangers of offshore drilling.

As part of my job at Defenders, I continue to learn about the myriad tools we all have to help make wildlife management work in good times, and during crises like oil spills. I made a commitment after the heart-breaking BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico to be a better citizen by becoming a certified Wildlife Sea Otter Responder. Recently, on a clear, crisp, cold Saturday, about 40 of us gathered in a windowless training room to spend the day with trainers from International Wildlife Research (IWR), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Alaska Sea Life Center and the Alyeska/SERVS to get a first-hand look at what it takes to be a certified responder.

Sea otters are unique among arctic marine mammals since they rely on the thickness and distinctive make-up of their fur, rather than blubber, to keep them warm or cool and dry. They live in sea-ice covered coastal areas and spend considerable time floating on their backs, often eating shellfish or nursing and caring for their pups that, unlike the young of other aquatic mammals like seals, cannot swim when first born.

Most of us hope we never get that call to respond, because doing so would mean heartbreak and tragedy for sea otters, other marine life and coastal communities.

Sea otters require very specific round-the-clock care when oiled. Their survival and return to the wild depend heavily on certified Wildlife Sea Otter Responders both knowing their jobs and doing them correctly – the first time and every time.

The IWR team that leads these trainings includes scientists, veterinarians and wildlife specialists with expertise and real world experience in the care and rehabilitation of oiled wildlife. In fact, many of them are actual veterans of the infamous Exxon Valdez Spill in Prince William Sound in 1989. IWR has provided expertise for preparing and executing oil spill response operations for sea otters and other marine and land mammals for over 15 years.

Karla Dutton and vet tech Willow are demonstrating the proper taping technique to put on XL-sized protective equipment.

As I embarked on the 9-hour training, I was struck by not only the complexity of the course, but also the very real and serious commitment I was making by being there. After much coffee, careful listening to lectures and participating in a number of team problem-solving sessions, we were deemed ready for any oil spill emergency that might come our way. As a result, I now have my certificate and am on the national register of first responders.

The course and the online training and exam are well worth your time if you feel motivated to be part of a group who could be called in to help wildlife in an oil spill someday. Most of us hope we never get that call to respond, because doing so would mean heartbreak and tragedy for sea otters, other marine life and coastal communities. But 40 more people are now prepared if the phone rings.

Learn more about sea otters and what Defenders is doing to protect all wildlife  from the threat of oil spills.

Alaska's Beaufort Sea, courtesy of NOAA

According to news reports, Peter Voser, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, is reported today to have announced that the oil giant has abandoned plans for exploratory drilling in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea in 2011.

But Arctic waters aren’t safe for good: despite the lack of infrastructure and cleanup technology that make oil spill response in the Arctic unfeasible, Shell intends to resume drilling plans for the Beaufort Sea in 2012.

Defenders’ Richard Charter said, “High risk offshore drilling in America’s Arctic Ocean cannot be considered a responsible course until we learn to clean up the inevitable oil spills in the region’s prevailing darkness, severe storms and broken sea ice, and until we have a Coast Guard presence closer than a thousand miles away.

“In the lingering aftermath of the BP Gulf spill catastrophe, and a similar shallow-water rig blowout in Australia, we simply cannot afford to invite an even worse disaster in the Arctic Ocean.”

“In the lingering aftermath of the BP Gulf spill catastrophe, and a similar shallow-water rig blowout in Australia, we simply cannot afford to invite an even worse disaster in the Arctic Ocean.”

Learn more:

Read Defenders’ full statement here.

See how Arctic drilling threatens pristine Arctic ecosystems.

San Francisco Bay Area handbag designer Mary Frances — whose artsy, whimsical creations have adorned the arms of  celebrities including Oprah Winfrey, Kate Hudson, Teri Hatcher and Jennifer Aniston — is generously donating five percent of sales from her Ocean Habitat handbag to Defenders of Wildlife.

Elegant beadwork defines these finely crafted pieces of wearable art that celebrate and call attention to the beauty and importance of our oceans. The designer describes the bag on her website: “A Capri blue ocean sets the background for sea creatures surrounded by seaweed, coral, and embellished with real shells.”

An oil-slathered Kemp's ridley sea turtle in the Gulf of Mexico gets help from a veterinarian during BP's oil disaster last summer.

This timely donation comes on the heels of the federal government’s final report, released on Tuesday, chronicling the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster that spread over huge swathes of the Gulf of Mexico with devastating impacts to marine life last summer.

Thanks, in part, to her support, Defenders will continue to advocate for safer drilling regulations and stronger protections for our oceans and marine life.

You Can Help

• Pick up an Ocean Habitat handbag from Mary Frances Accessories online
• Find out what YOU can do to help wildlife impacted by the BP Gulf oil disaster