Dancing with fish

Yesterday i was observing Least Terns hunting for small fish with which to woo their intended.  A dance with fish starts when the male tern first finds a suitable fish he can dangle before his lady love.  He flies around a bit, wiggling the fish in his beak, letting the sun make it glisten before landing in front of a female tern waiting on the ground.  He waddles up close, still wiggling the fish, trying desperately to entice her to accept his offering.  If the male appears with a fish that doesn't meet the female's criteria off she flies leaving the devastated male.  If he is successful with the fish dance she accepts his gift and waits like a queen for more.


Today we have oil dancing with humans, mammals, fish, birds and every thing else at all levels of the food chain.  The dance is not one of beauty, it is a tragedy whose final outcome we all await.

Crude oil, spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, was created through the heating of ancient organic material over geologic time.  The oil gushing into the sea today was formed from the preserved remains of prehistoric  zooplankton and algae, which settled on a sea or lake bottom in large quantities.  Today, it is being released into our ocean in unprecedented levels.

The Gulf oil spill has captured everyone in the world's attention; men, women, and children are riveted to live feeds of oil escaping from the damaged well.  Daily doses of quick fixes that failed are beamed over the intertubes and mass media outlets.  Live birds, turtles and various other affected wildlife are shown covered in oil.  Beaches, marshes, boats and anything having a common boundary with the gulf are all at risk.  Everything is beginning to show signs of this smothering greasy substance and this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Oil men, fishermen, tourist industry personnel, resort owners and service people are all financially impacted.

How will it end?  What are we to do? How can we prevent it are just a few of the thousands of questions waiting for elusive answers.  

So i decided to do a little research.

In the spirit of discovery i wanted to know what the impact on wildlife has been so far.  The research is only just beginning but below is a small sampling of what has been building daily and will continue to build over the coming weeks, months, years...?

The US Fish and Wildlife Service started a data base that they put on line the end of May.  May 28th the survey was consolidated from all the information received up to that point; it included reports from Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and Texas.  It only reflected the initial field level reports up to noon of that day.

• Alive but oil covered         Dead              Total
• Birds...63                            444               507
• Sea Turtles...16                   222               238
• Mammals...0                         24                  24

Fish and Wildlife has been collecting reports from all impacted states and placing them on line in 24 hour increments of noon to noon.   Yesterday, June 8, only eleven days later one twenty four hour period saw:

• Alive but oil covered        Dead           Total
• Birds...380                        622               1002
• Sea Turtles...50                 265                 315
• Mammals...2                       36                   38

In just another twenty four hour period, noon yesterday to noon today, consolidated reports from Texas, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana counted.

• Today June 9
• Alive but oil covered                Dead                Total
• Birds...442                               633                   1075
• Sea Turtles...50                        272                     322
• Mammals...2                               36                      38

These very early numbers are just a slice of what we can actually see.  The rest remains uncounted in the ocean.

Every day since the explosion broke the pipe there has been an upward trend in deaths and this is only the beginning.  We have no idea how long this well will gush oil, we have no idea how it will spread, and we have no idea what the impact will be to wildlife and humans in the decades to come. 

And now, here comes the hard part.  We are responsible, all of us that live in Western society and enjoy our TV's, our cars, our plastic bags, shoes and clothing, our homes and the food we buy.  Petroleum products have found their way into every segment of our society. We, as a nation are the highest consumers of petroleum products world wide.  Our addiction to oil wrecks the things we love(birds, sea creatures, mammals, beaches, wetlands and marshes and oceans) it wrecks businesses and livelihoods, it contributes to climate change, causes pollution and wars through our need to protect that resource.  How much do we spend as a nation waging wars so we can keep a footprint close to the source of our addiction?

When are we going to wake up? 

We are falling behind, we are no longer number one, we are just a bunch of stupid addicts.

During World War II we sequestered brilliant scientists at Los Alamos in New Mexico to build a bomb that had never been built.  If we can do that we can do the same by sequestering more brilliant scientists to find a way to reduce our oil dependence.

The time is now, we can't wait another minute.