Oil spill shuts the nation’s oldest oyster-shucking company

By KIM SEVERSON June 10, 2010, 12:56 pm The oldest oyster-shucking operation in the country shucked its last oyster on Thursday, a victim of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Al Sunseri, whose family has run P&J Oyster Company since 1876, said he was about to give the news  to the workers at […]

Low-oxygen pockets found off Alabama coast, raising new fears for sea life

By Ben Raines Published: Wednesday, June 09, 2010, 5:12 PM Scientists measured two areas of low oxygen off the Alabama coast Tuesday, finding levels below the threshold that marine creatures need to survive. The first low-oxygen pocket was found on the bottom in about 60 feet of water 12 miles off the coast due south […]

Oil spill creates huge undersea ‘dead zone’

By Emily DuganSunday May 30, 2010, 1:46 PM The world’s most damaging oil spill – now in its 41st continuously gushing day – is creating huge unseen “dead zones” in the Gulf of Mexico, according to oceanographers and toxicologists. They say that if their fears are correct, then the sea’s entire food chain could suffer […]

Fish merchants close one by one in New Orleans

By Staff WritersWestwego, Louisiana (AFP) May 25, 2010 The fast-encroaching oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico is forcing fish merchants to close one by one in Louisiana’s huge Westwego seafood market. “I’m closed because I couldn’t get any crabs,” said Michelle Chauncey, who pulled down her stall’s rolling metal door on Friday. Along the […]

Oysters are uniquely sensitive to Gulf of Mexico oil spill

By Bob Marshall, The Times-PicayuneMay 25, 2010, 6:37PM To most of us, an oyster is a morsel from heaven smiling from its open shell or resting on a cloud of French bread. But to researcher Earl Melancon, it is much more. The oyster is to Louisiana’s estuaries what the fabled canary was to coal mine […]

Baltimore rivers that flow into Chesapeake Bay get ‘F’ in University of Maryland report

By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun 9:43 a.m. EDT, May 19, 2010 While the Chesapeake Bay’s overall health improved slightly last year, the rivers that drain much of the Baltimore area remain in such poor shape that they earn a “failing grade,” University of Maryland scientists reported Tuesday. The bay as a whole improved […]

Tiniest victims of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill may turn out to be most important

By Bob Marshall, The Times-PicayuneMay 14, 2010, 7:00PM To the watching world the environmental threat that BP’s oil disaster poses to the nature-rich Louisiana coast is captured in images of beautiful birds or furry creatures crippled by thick black goo. But scientists who know these estuaries best are more concerned about a less photogenic community. […]

Louisiana closes Terrebonne oyster bed

By Robert Zullo, City Editor Published: Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 7:14 p.m. HOUMA — State officials closed an oyster bed off Terrebonne’s southern coast Thursday night, the latest in a dozen areas shut down as a result of the spreading oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico. Designated Area 17, the oyster bed south […]

Oil spill dispersants have potential to cause more harm than good

NEW ORLEANS, May 11 /PRNewswire/ — The chemical dispersants being used to break up the oil leaking into the gulf following the explosion of British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig have the potential to cause just as much, if not more, harm to the environment and the humans coming into contact with it than […]

Third of plants and animals ‘at risk of extinction’

  By Matthew MoorePublished: 1:25PM BST 09 May 2010 The world’s biodiversity is threatened by the economic growth of countries like China, India and Brazil, the study will say. While Western countries are increasingly aware of the need to protect endangered species, the developing world’s appetite for raw materials is destroying vulnerable ecosystems, the report’s […]

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