PHOTO: Officials "frightened"...wildlife already suffering from oil spill

[Bluebear]

Dr. Erica Miller, left, and Danene Birtell work to help a northern gannet bird that is covered in oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill, at a facility in Fort Jackson, La., on Friday.

...The area off the Louisiana coast is teeming with shrimp, oysters and other marine life, helping to make the state's $1.8-billion annual seafood industry the largest in the lower 48 states. More than 1.8 million migratory waterfowl use the Louisiana coastal wetlands...

Oil clumps seabirds' feathers, leaving them without insulation. And when they preen, they swallow it, possibly causing anemia, hemorrhaging and other problems.

Prolonged contact with the skin can cause burns, said Nils Warnock, a spill recovery supervisor with the California Oiled Wildlife Care Network at the University of California.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was focusing on national wildlife refuges on a chain of offshore barrier islands...Gulls, pelicans, roseate spoonbills, egrets, shore birds, terns and blue herons are in the path of the spill.

Mink and river otter also live in the Mississippi delta and might eat oiled carcasses.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/04/30/louisiana-oil-spill.html#ixzz0meKoMk4R

[Union Yes]

1. Nature suffers mankind's stupidity. knr

:cry:

[Delphinus]

4. +1,000,000

:cry:

[malaise]

6. I was watching BBC news a while ago and

they announced with grand fanfare that the head of BP was heading to Louisiana today. That sure was a speedy response. The BBC report was frightening but their 'name' seemed more important than the catastrophe that's about to befall the coastline.

[kysrsoze]

2. This is going to make the Valdez spill look like a walk in the park

Imagine thousands of miles of oil-soaked beaches, hundreds of thousands of oil-soaked animals, floating fish, ruined local tourism and fishing economies, etc. BP needs to pay for this, and pay dearly. Of course, I don't know how much authority the U.S. has over this huge, multinational corporation based outside the U.S.

[Imagevision]

3. Officials "frightened"? - why? do they vacation in the Gulf cities?

[Bluebear]

7. They are wildlife officials and they are frightened for the wildlife.

[no_hypocrisy]

5. The damage may be permanent. The beds and waters may never "come back".

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. I would never say never, it just may take longer than a few human

lifetimes.

Nature has a way of being resilient... But if you are thinking in geologic time... it will.