tagged w/ Leatherback Turtles
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"Government agencies don't have the data they need to accurately count populations of the six species of endangered and threatened sea turtles in the United States, says a report issued today by the National Research Council. And that will throw a wrench into ongoing efforts to figure out how badly the turtle populations that live and nest in the Gulf of Mexico have been hit by the oil spill, says report chair Karen Bjorndal, a marine biologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville who studies loggerhead and green turtles. The data gaps also hamper the government's ability to set sensible, "acceptable take" limits, the numbers of turtles deemed permissible for fishermen to accidentally catch, she says.
A first, rough estimate of the oil spill's impact will emerge when government scientists count nests next year, says a report author, Larry Crowder, a marine biologist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. But if the government sticks to that method alone, they won't know the fate of this year's endangered Kemp's ridley hatchlings, which seek out floating seaweed patches in the gulf after leaving their nests in Mexico, until those hatchlings mature, up to 15 years later. "Something like a Kemp's ridley has to live for a dozen years before it becomes a statistic," he says.
"If [government agencies] had the kind of data that we tell them they should obtain, we'd be in a much better position to judge the impacts on the sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico and the repercussions down the line," says Bjorndal."
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/headcount-of-sea-turtles-proves-.html"Government agencies don't have the data they need to accurately count... more
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"Brown pelicans and other seabirds often dive into the oil because the slick makes the water look calmer. If they are coated in oil, they will be unable to regulate their temperatures, leading to hyperthermia.
Plankton, tiny immobile organisms at the base of the food chain, can be killed by chemically dispersed oil.
All four species of sea turtles in the gulf are threatened or endangered. Some have already washed up ashore, and with numbers already low, it would be harder to rebuild the population.
Dolphins, which often follow boats to play, have been following response crews, getting near the slicks.
Shrimp and other shellfish are more vulnerable to oil and chemical dispersants because they are stationary, while some adult fin fish populations may be mobile.
Fish larvae are most at risk. Bluefin tuna, now spawning near the spill, are of particular concern. The Gulf of Mexico is one of only two nurseries in the world for bluefin tuna.
Sperm whales, which spend most of their time diving for prey, may come up in the slick as they reach the surface to breathe."
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/04/28/us/20100428-spill-map.html"Brown pelicans and other seabirds often dive into the oil because the slick... more
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The Everglades, a subtropical wetland in the southern portion of Florida. A scenic oasis for wild and plant life. The Everglades Have been around long before human habitation took place around 15,000 years ago. And now due the the influx of residents in southern Florida approximately 50% of Florida's "river of grass" is gone. Though Florida has developed a comprehensive restoration plan to rehabilitate the water flow from lake Okeechobee back to the ocean there is a much darker threat on the horizon, OIL. since April 20, 2010 an estimated rate of about 70,000 barrels of oil per day have been pumping out of the gulf of Mexico. Since then an estimated amount of anywhere between 42 million and 100 million gallons have devastated the gulfs fragile waters. Much of the gulfs ecosystem is being affected. So far, 353 turtles and less than 1000 birds have been found dead. But if the oil spill is not taken care of soon we will most likely see these number rise. What does this mean for the Everglades? Will it soon be annihilated? The truth is we don't know, we can only speculate. But what we do know is it is soon to be much more devastating than we ever thought.The Everglades, a subtropical wetland in the southern portion of Florida. A scenic... more
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Bloomberg Businessweek
BP, Coast Guard Will Save Turtles From Oil Burns
July 02, 2010, 2:46 PM EDT
(Updates with burned oil in 11th paragraph.)
By Laurel Brubaker Calkins and Allen Johnson Jr.
July 2 (Bloomberg) --
BP Plc and the U.S. Coast Guard have reached an agreement to end the inadvertent killing of endangered sea turtles trapped inside containment booms during controlled burns of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, lawyers said.
“We’ve agreed to meet to work out the terms to make sure the turtles are protected,” Jason Burge, a lawyer for several environmental groups suing to protect the sea turtles, told U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier at an emergency hearing today in New Orleans federal court.
Details will be fleshed out over the weekend so that protections may be in place by the time controlled burns are set to resume on July 6, the lawyers told Barbier. The wildlife groups withdrew their request for a temporary restraining order blocking the burns, on the condition they may renew the request later if the turtle-rescue settlement falls apart.
Burge told Barbier oil-spill clean-up crews have suspended controlled burns because of bad weather caused by Hurricane Alex, the first tropical storm to enter the Gulf of Mexico this year, which slammed into northern Mexico on June 30.
William Eubanks, who also represents the wildlife groups, said in an interview outside the New Orleans courtroom that the activists want to include “qualified observers, like a biologist or a sea turtle researcher” to accompany crews conducting the burns. These trained personnel can spot and safely remove any sea turtles trapped within containment booms.
Mutual Goal
Don Haycraft, BP’s lead lawyer in New Orleans spill-related litigation, said the company will work with the Coast Guard and environmentalists to achieve a mutual goal.
“This effort is an example of BP and the government and the outside parties reaching a common agreement on an issue -- protecting sea turtles -- that is important to everyone,” Haycraft said.
Environmental groups sued BP and the Coast Guard on June 30, seeking to block the use of controlled burns or require all boats involved in the process to rescue turtles from inside floating burn boxes before the oil is ignited.
“BP has already killed or otherwise harmed” hundreds of rare Kemp’s Ridley, Leatherback, Loggerhead and other species of endangered sea turtles through its use of controlled burns or as a result of contamination from the oil spill itself, the lawsuit claims. The animals become trapped when shrimp boats encircle patches of floating oil with fire-resistant booms to create “burn boxes” 60 to 100 feet in diameter, they said.
Swim to Safety
In affidavits filed with the lawsuit, boat captains and turtle rescue workers said they’ve saved numerous sea turtles that were trapped in heavy oil accumulations. Many of these rescued turtles were scooped from sludge floating in the same areas where trawlers were corralling crude for controlled burns. The turtles are too heavily oiled to free themselves from the sludge and swim to safety, although out of the oil they respond well to rehabilitation, the witnesses said.
BP and the Coast Guard estimate that 9.9 million gallons of crude oil recovered from the Deepwater Horizon well have been burned as of July 1, according to a statement on the joint command’s web site.
The wildlife activists added the Coast Guard to the lawsuit after BP said all company clean up and containment activities, including the controlled burns, are being carried out under Coast Guard orders.
BP has yet to contain a damaged underwater well that has been spewing as much as 60,000 barrels of crude oil daily off the Louisiana coast since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig burned and sank in April.
The case is Animal Welfare Institute v. BP America Inc. et al, 2:10-cv-01866, U.S. District Courts, Eastern District of Louisiana (New Orleans).
--Editors: John Pickering
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/esa_works/gallery/images2/Kemp%27s-Ridley-sea-turtle-USFWS.jpgBloomberg Businessweek
BP, Coast Guard Will Save Turtles From Oil Burns
July 02,... more
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..the leatherback question is of course a cover for the real question you and others have asked about other species. “What species can we allow to go extinct without major harm (as in bodily) or disruption (as in lifestyle which includes all the props — houses car, roads, food, that enable us to live the way we do) of mankind?”
The answer is:
We are already allowing species to go extinct, and will continue to in the future, due to lack of resources, personal and political will, and knowledge. We have already started “events” that we know of, such as global warming and others that we don’t, but will affect the leatherback and other animals like the polar bear in the Arctic. The reality is we have unwittingly started a science project, on a global scale, that we are part of.
The project’s premise?
“Just how much biodiversity do we need?”
The answer?
“Who knows, because we might not be around to see how this experiment ends.”
So saving as many animals and plants as we can, trying to slow down global warming (we can’t stop it) is our attempt to try to be around when the experiment ends.
--Allen Salzberg
(Publisher, HerpDigest)
..the leatherback question is of course a cover for the real question you and others... more
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