oil persisted in the environment much longer than we expected,” he says. Overall, the toll to gulf birds, tur-
tles, sperm whales and other wildlife, along with the region’s $4-billion-per- year seafood industry and awholeway of life, is expected to be enormous. “It’s taken 20 years to figure out the effects of oil in Alaska,” Jessup says. “It could take longer with this spill.” One crucial question: How much of the coastal marshes can be protected from the oil? Another danger of applauding
But do the released animals actually
stay alive in the wild? Humboldt State’s Golightly was one of the skep- tics.When an oil pipeline ruptured off the California coast in 1997, coating gulls and other birds with crude, Golightly figured it was a chance to answer the question. “Gulls are hardy,” he says. “If rehab didn’t work with them, then we didn’t need to waste time with any species.” Golightly outfitted released birds
with radio transmitters. He also put captured non-oiled gulls through the cleaning process for a comparison. “I was frankly astounded,” he says. “Every one of the oiled birds survived as long as the radios lasted.” After he also got good results with common murres in a 1999 oil spill in Humboldt Bay and with surf scoters in 2007, Golightly became a believer in wildlife rescue—especially when populations are small and each individual animal matters. “I find myself converted to the notion that there is a significant effect onwildlife populations,” he says. Another benefit: “The data we collect will be part of evidence used to put a dollar value on the damage to the envi- ronment,” Ziccardi says. Although rescuing even a handful of
individuals belonging to an endangered species, such as the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, can be critical to a population, successfully releasing a fewrescued ani- mals of any kind into the wild will not do much to make the gulf environ- ment—and the region’s economy— whole again, scientists say. Even the pelicans and other birds lovingly cleaned of oil could be harmed by the long-term effects of oil and chemical dispersants, especially since animals could simply be exposed again in the wake of a massive spill such as the one in the gulf. Indeed, biologist Daniel Esler of the Centre forWildlife Ecology at Simon Fraser University found that Alaskan harlequin ducks were still dying at a higher rate than normal from exposure to oil up to 14 years after ExxonValdez. “The big lesson is that the
FACT WHALES AT RISK
The BP spill threatens a unique pop- ulation of fewer than 2,000 endan- gered sperm whales that live exclu- sively in the Gulf of Mexico, are
smaller than other sperm whales and have their own distinct calls.
wildlife rescue too much is that it diverts attention from the overall toll, Estes warns. “The thing I really object to is that the public is left with the impression that we are dealing with the problem,” he says.“We aren’t deal- ing with the problem.” NWF’s Inkley adds, “Focusing on birds and mam- mals, while it has its place, distracts from the larger trauma of habitat destruction as well as the harm, espe- cially in the deep-water BP oil spill, to marine creatures living far beneath the water surface. We will likely never know the full toll for those species and can do nothing to rescue them.” The real issue, of course, is that
while fossil fuels have brought unprecedented global progress and wealth, they also are a deal with the devil. They cause everything from cli- mate change and pollution to global political unrest. “I think this spill is one of the costs we pay for the life we live, if we want to utilize petroleum resources,” Estes says. “The real solution is to work more
diligently to reduce the risks of spills further,” Cornell’s Howarth says. Environmentalists hope, for instance, that this tragic spill will finally push the country—and the world—toward cleaner energy alternatives. As NWF president Larry Schweiger concluded during testimony before Congress in May, “We have a real opportunity to turn the corner on our destructive and decades-long dependence on oil.”
Virginia writer JOHN CAREY is a former senior correspondent for BusinessWeek, who covered science and the environment.
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2010 | WWW.NWF.ORG | 35 |
CHARLES RIEDEL (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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