I usually introduce these diaries with disclaimers that they are meant purely as diversions from the struggles of the day. That is not the case today. This diary is meant purely as a visual reminder of some of the creatures in the path of the ongoing disaster.
These photos are mine and were not taken in the Gulf region but in Hawaii, California, New Mexico and Alaska but the species are the same.
Green Turtle
Green Turtle
From NowPublic.com
There are five species of sea turtles that live in this region of the Gulf of Mexico, with the Kemp's Ridley turtle only nesting here and no where else in the world. Their nesting season is in April, so they could be severely affected. This species is classified as endangered, along with the Leatherback and Green turtles, and the Loggerhead and Hawksbill turtles are listed as threatened.
Pilot Whale
Pantropical Spotted Dolphin
Rough-Toothed Dolphins
Spinner Dolphins
In addition to these species there are also Bottlenose, Atlantic, Risso, Fraser, Striped, and Clymene Dolphins as well as Sperm Whales and Bryde Whales.
From NowPublic.com
Whales are also found in the area, specifically the Bryde whale and the sperm whale and a few whales were sighted in the region as early as a few days ago. According to the CBC, Bryde whales are even more at risk due to the way they eat, through a filter in their mouth, and this means they could swallow large amounts of oil.
Let's hope that the dolphins and whales manage to swim away from the worst of the spill and that they can still find enough food to survive.
Snowy Egret
A cousin of this bird, the Reddish Egret is a locally threatened species, now much more threatened.
Black Crowned Night Heron
Great Blue Heron
Sandhill Cranes
Brown Pelican
Brown Pelican
From DailyComet.com
The brown pelican, Louisiana's state bird, nests on barrier islands and feeds near shore. Their breeding season has just begun and many pairs are already caring for eggs. The brown pelican was only removed from the endangered species list last year and remain vulnerable, officials with Audubon said. Their relatively low reproductive rate means any disruption in breeding could have serious effects on the population.
Black Skimmer
The American Bird Conservancy has released a list of the ten bird habitat sites most threatened by the spill:
1.Gulf Coast Least Tern Colony
One of the world’s largest colonies of the threatened least tern.
2.Lower Pascagoula River – including the Pascagoula River Coastal Preserve
The coastal marshes at the mouth of the river support yellow and black rails, snowy plovers and endangered wintering piping plovers.
3.Gulf Islands National Seashore
Hosts thousands of wintering shorebirds, including endangered piping plover, Wilson’s plover and American oystercatcher as well as brown pelican, black-crowned night-heron, white ibis and black skimmer.
4.Breton National Wildlife Refuge – including the Chandeleur Islands
Largest tern colony in North America, predominantly of sandwich, royal, and caspian terns. Also American oystercatcher, brown pelican, reddish egret and endangered piping plover. Also an important wintering area for magnificent frigatebird, and stopover site for redhead and lesser scaup.
5.Dauphin Island
An important stopover site for migrant birds including shorebirds, gulls, terns, herons and rails.
6.Fort Morgan Historical Park
An important stopover site for migratory birds including shorebirds, gulls, terns, herons and rails.
7.Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge
An important stopover site for thousands of trans-Gulf migrants.
8.Eglin Air Force Base
Best known for its inland population of red-cockaded woodpeckers, Elgin also has significant coastal habitat for shorebirds and wading birds.
9.Delta National Wildlife Refuge
Large numbers of wading birds nest here, including white ibis, snowy egrets and herons; thousands of shorebirds use the mudflats in winter and during migration, including dunlin, long-billed dowitcher and western sandpiper as well as endangered piping plover.
10.Baptiste Collette Bird Islands
This artificial barrier island, created from dredge spoil, is one of the many Louisiana coastal islands that could be affected. Birds found here include caspian tern, brown pelican, gull-billed tern and black skimmer.
Black Skimmer
I don't think this approach to feeding would work well in an oil slick.
Fishers
Breaking News:
As President Barack Obama arrived in Louisiana Sunday to monitor efforts to battle the massive Gulf Coast oil leak, federal officials closed impacted waters to commercial and recreational fishing for at least 10 days.
10 days... uh huh. They may not have the leak stopped for months. Oysters, shrimp, redfish, menhaden, mullet, the list goes on. Louisiana bills itself as The Sportsman's Paradise. Those days could be largely in the past. Entire ways of life, already threatened, could simply and tragically disappear.
I really hope that the worst case scenarios do not turn out to be true, that the scientist analyzing aerial photos and saying that the leak is already at 25,000 barrels a day
is wrong, that somehow BP will manage to stop the spill sooner than expected, that their "domes" will work to contain the worst of it, that the pressure in the resevoir will fall, that something, anything will happen to mitigate this human and ecological catastrophe.
A couple of quotes have struck me:
From today's msnbc.com article, a BP spokesman "I don't think anybody foresaw the circumstance that we're faced with now," he said. "The blowout preventer was the main line of defense against this type of incident, and it failed."
NO ONE COULD HAVE FORSEEN!!! Where have I heard that before?
From Samuel Thernstrom of the conservative American Enterprise Institute in a NY Times opinion piece "Despite its tragic consequences, the Deepwater Horizon accident doesn’t fundamentally change the strong safety record of offshore drilling in recent years." Yeah, and Chernobly didn't fundamentally change the safety record of Russian Nuclear Plants! The idiocy of that statement is really astounding.
Sorry I am not much of a writer but I thought I could offer this diary up as a reminder of what is being destroyed.
Aloha