What is happening in the Gulf of Mexico right now is an unprecedented ecological disaster. It is threatening sea turtles, sperm whales, dolphins, brown pelicans, Atlantic bluefin tuna and scores of other species… along with entire ecosystems.
Young turtles like the Kemp’s ridley are especially imperiled by oil on beaches and in the water. Loggerheads, now listed as threatened, need new protections in the wake of the Gulf offshore oil disaster.
Loggerhead sea turtles were in trouble before the Gulf oil spill disaster.
The number of female loggerheads nesting on Florida beaches – one of the most important habitats for the species – has declined by 50 percent in the past decade. Scientists and government officials have sounded the alarm about what this could mean for the future of the ancient sea mariners. The National Marine Fisheries Service is now proposing to upgrade protection for loggerheads from threatened to endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
These turtles need our help even more now. More than 150 dead sea turtles have washed ashore in several states since the spill began on April 20. Officials say no oil was found on those turtles and their cause of death isn’t known. (Yeah….sure….I believe that one NOT) That was over a month ago, can you just imagine how many more have died since then?
Oil is extremely toxic to loggerheads and other species. Exposure can cause skin loss, poisoning, drowning and death… which is exactly why we need every available tool to help save the lives of individual loggerheads and save this species from extinction.
“We’re no longer dealing with a large, monolithic spill,” Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Monday at a White House news conference. “We’re dealing with an aggregation of hundreds of thousands of patches of oil that are going a lot of different directions.”
Officials reported that a containment cap over the BP gusher at the bottom of the Gulf was sucking up one-third to three-quarters of the oil — but also noted that its effects could linger for years.
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Absolutely horrible. There are many areas in the Gulf reserved for Loggerhead breeding and conservation, and this spill is destroying all of the hard work and progress that has been made. This is sad, and the effects are going to spread outside of the Gulf as well.
Thank you for sharing this article. If you don’t mind, I’m going to post a bit about it on my blog as well. It is devastating and tragic and the work BP is doing to get it under control is pathetic in my opinion.
I don’t mind at all, Lynne. Thank you for reading and passing on the information.