Like crude oil, scientific comparisons can be slippery. When Americans first hear that “only” 2,900 dead birds have been collected and tallied in the Gulf of Mexico following the BP oil disaster, they can be forgiven for initially thinking that the Exxon Valdez spill was worse for wildlife. By the time the full story unfolds, this media myth may prove to be untrue.
For several reasons, the official daily casualty report is an incomplete account of wildlife damages in the Gulf of Mexico, especially for birds, and shouldn’t be the only metric used to describe the wildlife impact.
- The daily casualty report represents only the number of collected and captured animals, which may only be a fraction of the birds left to die in the wild.
- Oil and chemical-exposed birds may die and be scavenged or sink in Gulf waters, uncounted, and a dynamic environment of winds and currents decreases the likelihood that carcasses will wash ashore.
- Open waters and coastal wetlands can be particularly challenging environments to access and survey, compared to rocky shorelines.
- Finally, assessing wildlife damages goes beyond counting individual animals; ecosystem impacts like habitat damage and persistent toxins may only reveal themselves through long-term studies of population and food web dynamics.
It is very encouraging that the U.S. Department of Agriculture, state and federal wildlife agencies, and non-governmental organizations are working pro-actively with farmers in the region to create emergency habitat for shorebirds and waterfowl as fall migration season approaches. To evaluate the success of these programs, trained wildlife biologists should be employed to observe and report on how these and other alternate habitats are being used, compared to the oiled coastal areas.
To openly assess the full damage to fish and wildlife, we need independent, long-term, and widespread surveys that systematically monitor and publicly report:
- Habitat use in damaged, restored, and alternate emergency habitats;
- Short- and long-term effects of the disaster on animal populations and the entire food web; and
- The fate and transport of oil and chemical dispersants from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.
This view was reinforced by Dr. Robert Spies of Applied Marine Sciences, Dr. Erik Rifkin of the National Aquarium, and Stanley Senner of the Ocean Conservancy in their testimony on July 28 before the Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. They all stressed the need for ecosystem studies in the Gulf that are long-term, independent, and peer-reviewed, and they emphasizing the importance of scientific rigor and transparency in the Gulf Natural Resource Damage Assessment.
Dr. Stacy Small is an EDF wildlife ecologist who specializes in bird populations.
via blogs.edf.org
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