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Expert Recommends Killing Oil-Soaked Birds

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posted on Jun, 7 2010 @ 12:49 PM
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Expert Recommends Killing Oil-Soaked Birds


www.spiegel.de

A German biologist says that efforts to clean oil-drenched birds in the Gulf of Mexico are in vain. For the birds' sake, it would be faster and less painful if animal-rescue workers put them under, she says. Studies and other experts back her up.
(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
scienceblogs.com
www.huliq.com



posted on Jun, 7 2010 @ 12:49 PM
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Boy, this is a tough call if what the article says is true, ...


"According to serious studies, the middle-term survival rate of oil-soaked birds is under 1 percent," Gaus says. "We, therefore, oppose cleaning birds."
******SKIP******
Once covered in oil, a bird will use its bill and tongue to remove the toxic substance from their feathers. Despite oil's terrible taste and smell, a bird will still try and clean itself because it can't live without fluffy feathers that repel water and regulate its body temperature. "Their instinct to clean is greater than their instinct to hunt, and as long as their feathers are dirty with oil, they won't eat," Gaus says.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.


If only 1 percent of the birds that are cleaned (out of thousands) live, is it worth letting the other 99% suffer a slow and painful toxic death?


Even dyed-in-the-wool preservationists from the WWF agree with Gaus. At the time of the 2002 Prestige oil spill off the coast of Spain, a spokesman from the organization said: "Birds, those that have been covered in oil and can still be caught, can no longer be helped. … Therefore, the World Wildlife Fund is very reluctant to recommend cleaning."

The Prestige spill killed 250,000 birds. Of the thousands that were cleaned, most died within a few days, and only 600 lived and were able to be released into the wild. According to a British study of the spill, the median lifespan of a bird that was cleaned and released was only seven days.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.


This is a tough call, be humane and clean the birds up so a few of them have a chance to live, or be humane and end the suffering quickly for thousands of birds!

Even the World Wildlife Fund doesn't recommend trying to clean them!

Then, on the other hand, this IS a man-made catastrophe, shouldn't we be trying to save all the animals affected by it that we can?

Like I said earlier, tough call!

www.spiegel.de
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 6/7/2010 by Keyhole]



posted on Jun, 7 2010 @ 12:56 PM
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Talk about false advertising.




Probably nothing here, but anyone else notice this commercial started airing right before the spill?

[edit on 7-6-2010 by DaMod]



posted on Jun, 7 2010 @ 01:08 PM
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reply to post by DaMod
Actually I did notice that. At first I was like hmm? What does cleaning birds have to do with Dawn unless they're reminding us of history from the Exxon Valdez... Then some time afterwards there was the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

However: there are other leaks around the Deepwater Horizon area, not just the 'main leak'... So is the 'accident' a distraction for something bigger going on in the Deep Water Horizon vicinity and the higher-ups at Dawn was privy to this information.



posted on Jun, 7 2010 @ 01:31 PM
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There has been a thread on this for a while.

Same title in fact!

www.abovetopsecret.com...



posted on Jun, 7 2010 @ 01:39 PM
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reply to post by butcherguy
 


Ooops!

Didn't notice the date on the article!

Not exactly "Breaking News" I guess.



posted on Jun, 7 2010 @ 03:31 PM
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reply to post by Keyhole
 



And where would they release them?
Back into the gulf?



posted on Jun, 7 2010 @ 06:32 PM
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I remember back in the 90s reading through research papers published by people who worked on the Exxon-Valdize oil spill. Birds would have to be force fed a slurry of fish and...chips(crackers or something else.) that was pureed in a blender. The workers would have to stick a feeding tube into the bird's gullet in order to feed them, it was in no way humane. Any bird that gets badly oiled is better of getting it's neck snapped, or a shotgun blast if it would be more humane.

DAMN BP! It's all their fault these animals are suffering.



posted on Jun, 15 2010 @ 04:11 PM
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Originally posted by DaMod
Talk about false advertising.



Not REALLY.

Dawn may get the oil off the animals feathers, but it's what the bird ingested that causes the bird to get toxic poisoning.

Expert Recommends Killing Oil-Soaked Birds

Once covered in oil, a bird will use its bill and tongue to remove the toxic substance from their feathers. Despite oil's terrible taste and smell, a bird will still try and clean itself because it can't live without fluffy feathers that repel water and regulate its body temperature. "Their instinct to clean is greater than their instinct to hunt, and as long as their feathers are dirty with oil, they won't eat," Gaus says.
******SKIP******
Catching and cleaning oil-soaked birds oftentimes leads to fatal amounts of stress for the animals, Gaus says. Furthermore, forcing the birds to ingest coal solutions -- or Pepto Bismol, as animal-rescue workers are doing along the Gulf Coast -- in an attempt to prevent the poisonous effects of the oil is ineffective, Gaus says. The birds will eventually perish anyway from kidney and liver damage.



posted on Jun, 15 2010 @ 04:22 PM
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Originally posted by Happyfeet
I remember back in the 90s reading through research papers published by people who worked on the Exxon-Valdize oil spill. Birds would have to be force fed a slurry of fish and...chips(crackers or something else.) that was pureed in a blender. The workers would have to stick a feeding tube into the bird's gullet in order to feed them, it was in no way humane. Any bird that gets badly oiled is better of getting it's neck snapped, or a shotgun blast if it would be more humane.

DAMN BP! It's all their fault these animals are suffering.


I pretty much feel the same way. Unless these birds are going to be housed and fed, until the oil is cleaned up, if they are released they will just get oil covered, again!



posted on Jun, 15 2010 @ 04:33 PM
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thinking as a BP exec I would bathe the birds in corexit, since I have stock in the company; it would disperse oil off the birds - even though I know it wouldn't work, the dumbed down population would applaud the effort




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