Dead dolphins and shrimp with no eyes found after BP clean-up

Hundreds of beached dolphin carcasses, shrimp with no eyes, contaminated fish, ancient corals caked in oil and some seriously unwell people are among the legacies that scientists are still uncovering in the wake of BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill.

This week it will be three years since the first of 4.9 billion barrels of crude oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico, in what is now considered the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. As the scale of the ecological disaster unfolds, BP is appearing daily in a New Orleans federal court to battle over the extent of compensation it owes to the region.

Infant dolphins were found dead at six times average rates in January and February of 2013. More than 650 dolphins have been found beached in the oil spill area since the disaster began, which is more than four times the historical average. Sea turtles were also affected, with more than 1,700 found stranded between May 2010 and November 2012 – the last date for which information is available. On average, the number stranded annually in the region is 240.

Contact with oil may also have reduced the number of juvenile bluefin tuna produced in 2010 by 20 per cent, with a potential reduction in future populations of about 4 per cent. Contamination of smaller fish also means that toxic chemicals could make their way up the food chain after scientists found the spill had affected the cellular function of killifish, a common bait fish at the base of the food chain.

Deep sea coral, some of which is thousands of years old, has been found coated in oil after the dispersed droplets settled on the sea’s bottom. A recent laboratory study found that the mixture of oil and dispersant affected the ability of some coral species to build new parts of a reef.

Doug Inkley, a senior scientist for the US National Wildlife Federation and author of a report published this week on wildlife affected by the spill, said: “These ongoing deaths – particularly in an apex predator such as the dolphin – are a strong indication that there is something amiss with the Gulf ecosystem.”

Rest of the article is here

This is horrible. It's been 3 years and nothing has been done to prevent this, instead they are still arguing over how much money they owe people. I mean, shrimp with no eyes?! wth. I don't think they realise how much damage they've done to the ocean and to those people living nearby

I think they realize it... I just think they don't care and that is far worse IMO. Americans have a bad habit of treating tragedies like the BP incident, 9/11, etc. almost like the soup of the day. They are wrapped up in it, real emotions and all and once it gets less air time? Out of sight. Out of mind. It's sad and unfair, but I feel it hits pretty close to home. We have short memories and people in high places use this. Most of the world has moved on 500 times since the BP oil spill/ Few keep track of the clean up efforts, settlements, etc. that do not live there.

We should hold them accountable and our government should do a better job of making damn sure they do the right thing but it doesn't seem to be working out that way and for that I am sad. I wish there were enough people willing to stand up and fight for right. Instead we have too many that could not care less if it isn't happening in their living room in front of their flat screens.

It's tragic for sure.

no eyes huh?
reminds me of this article I read yesterday where dead dolphins (24 to date..) are washing up in adelaide with blood coming from their eyes

www.news.com.au...

The discovery at Seaford this morning takes the number of dead dolphins to 24 since March 1.
A surfer spotted the animal, believed to be a juvenile, and contacted staff at Surfing South Australia.
Surfing SA General Manager Craig Potgieter sent in a picture of the animal this morning.
"It looks like a baby dolphin and it's bleeding out of its eye ... I don't know if that's normal," he said.

Grrr I wrote a whole reply and then it timed out... how annoying.

Basically, at the risk of sounding like an earth mother, I don't see how global companies don't understand they have a responsibility. They don't care about repercussions past their monetary loss.

The ocean is incredibly important, as are the creatures within it (here I go, lol). Poisoning fish means there is less food to eat, if theres less food to eat, or catch, then industries and individual fishermen lose their livelihoods. Deadliest Catch wouldn't be so much about the Bearing Seas catches, but the fact they're pulling up crabs with radioactive claws and lazerbeam eyes
Coral is also important because it acts as a natural shore shield, preventing damage from storms and waves. It's also a tourist attraction. Imagine going to Australia and wanting to see the Reef, and then discovering it's actually all crapped up. No-one would ever go to see it, and so Australia suffers a lack of tourism, and therefore results in an economic drop.

And finally (yup, definitely a flourishing earth mother in the making haha) we're cutting down trees which make oxygen and cut carbon dioxide, we're smogging and polluting the air (and by we, I mean, humans in general), the ocean is the largest oxygen source our world has... we start junking that up, then we're all taking dirt naps before we know it.