Oil spill’s toll on birds set to soar drastically
By Steve Gorman and Ernest Scheyder, Editing by Sandra Maler
LOS ANGELES/FORT JACKSON
Thu Jul 1, 2010 3:01am EDT LOS ANGELES/FORT JACKSON, Louisiana (Reuters) – Despite the images of oil-soaked pelicans flooding the media in recent weeks, wildlife experts say the toll on sea birds from BP’s Gulf Coast oil spill is smaller than was anticipated, so far. That is expected to change drastically for the worse. Scientists warn that as shifting weather and sea conditions conspire with the dynamics of avian life cycles, a tremendous number of birds will soon be put in jeopardy. In the coming weeks, millions of waterfowl and other birds that flock to the U.S. Gulf Coast on their annual fall migration will arrive in the region either to roost for the winter or to make brief stopovers en route farther south. With toxic crude still gushing from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico and streaks of the slick creeping inexorably farther inland, many more birds and other wildlife that nest, feed and find shelter on shore are likely to become casualties. “To this point, we haven’t seen a lot of oiled wildlife based on the size of the spill,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Catherine Berg said. “(But) there’s still a lot of oil out there. There’s still a lot of wildlife in the area.” Birds migrating through the Gulf largely dodged a bullet in the spring when newly escaped oil from the ruptured BP wellhead took longer than expected to wash ashore. “A lot of those birds were safe on their spring passage, but they won’t be safe on their fall passage,” said Greg Butcher, bird conservation director for the National Audubon Society. … Rehabilitation centers in the Gulf have treated over 800 oil-impaired birds and released at least 250 back to the wild. The birds are tagged, and some have come through twice, said Holcomb, who oversees rescue operations out of the main treatment facility in Fort Jackson, Louisiana. “A lot of these birds … want to come back to their nest,” Holcomb said. “Most spills are over really quick, but this is like a new spill every day. It’s really discouraging.” … As disturbing as pictures of oiled wildlife have been, the 850 oil-fouled birds found alive to date and hundreds more known to have died pale in comparison to the 250,000 seabirds estimated to have perished from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound. “That may change as time goes on because more and more birds are probably going to be oiled,” Holcomb said. … Experts say high winds and seas from any number of storms, including Hurricane Alex, could push more oil into the fragile patchwork of salt marshes, beaches, islands and inlets composing the Gulf’s ragged shoreline. The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season that officially began last month is expected to be one of the more active in recent years. Moreover, the Mississippi River’s drainage into the Gulf is starting to dissipate after a robust spring outflow — fed by heavy rains and Tennessee floodwaters upstream — that helped keep oil away from shore in the early days of the spill. As the river levels fall, the Gulf’s waters will be drawn back up toward the mouth of the Mississippi and farther into the delta, along with more of the oil on the surface. … “We have a lot of birds on rookeries. We have a lot of birds in the marshes, just roosting locally. Pretty soon, we’re going to get an influx of waterfowl as they come in here to molt post breeding season,” Berg said. After mating and nesting in freshwater inland areas, many ducks and geese venture to the coast to molt, losing their worn summer feathers, then growing winter plumage, before continuing their fall migration. In between, they are flightless. “Think about it. A whole bunch of ducks that can’t fly, on the water,” Berg said. …
The massive coverup by BP and the US Coast Guard helps immensely on what "we can't see".
It flat-out defies logic that a spill of this size only affects "thousands" instead of millions of birds (already).
Most wildlife deaths are simply going unnoticed and unrecorded. This should be self-evident. You almost never see a dead animal that dies, even if you live in the forest like I do. They are swiftly disposed of by nature.
The animals now dying however, aren't particularly palatable by bugs, carrion eaters and even bacteria due to their oil-soaked carcasses being undesirable. We will undoubtedly see millions more dead animals as the media blackout is slowly lifted.