Tiger shark bellies found full of migrating birds; are Gulf oil and gas rigs to blame?

[XemaSab]

Feathers of woodland birds found in tiger shark bellies this fall bolster the theory that the Gulf’s offshore oil and gas platforms pose a fatal danger to migrating birds, according to scientists from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab.

“The best way I can describe what we found in the sharks is to think of a hairball like cats cough up,” said Marcus Drymon, a Sea Lab scientist who dissected several of the sharks. “The balls are just solid feathers and about as big around as a grapefruit. We caught these sharks during the fall migration in the general vicinity of the platforms off Alabama.”

Feathers in the mouth of a tiger shark caught south of Dauphin Island belonged to a yellow-bellied sapsucker, a woodpecker that migrates across the Gulf of Mexico each year, Drymon said. The red feathers in another shark’s belly came from a scarlet tanager, and the brown ones belonged to a brown thrasher.

Drymon and his fellow scientists said they have found feathers in years past during an ongoing shark survey but didn’t make the connection to migratory birds until they read a November Press-Register article.

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/12/sharks_birds_gulf_oil_rigs.html

[Pancho Sanza]

1. Birds and fish have been eating each other (and their "own" each other) for millions of years.

shrug

[Systematic Chaos]

2. But what we really need to know is:

Can the fish and the human coexist peacefully?

:eyes:

[Rincewind]

3. Yes we can,

I have some salmon coexisting peacefully in my freezer.

[petronius]

4. Perhaps the sharks have learned to climb trees?

Interesting story - I've always wondered why rigs were so incredibly bright. Seems like they could help the birds (and maybe other creatures?) and save some money on lightbulbs if they limited the illumination to places where work and safety required it...