BP Burning sealife

BP just can't stay off my radar these days. It seems that they're grossly incompetent in just about any way that a major corporation can be incompetent. I can only imagine how many stories like this the "media blackout" are filtering out.

From Change

It’s not just oil going up in flames in the controlled burns BP has been setting off in the Gulf of Mexico. According to eyewitnesses, sea turtles and other marine life trapped in the oil slick are being burned alive — and BP is preventing rescuers from saving the creatures’ lives.

The Los Angeles Times reported last week that converging ocean currents are collecting long clusters of sargassum seaweed along with the spilled oil, creating 30-mile-long "islands of death." The booms trailing BP ships indiscriminately gather up the oil and seaweed (as well as whatever critters have the misfortune to be clinging to it), which is then torched. The 100-foot flames mark an area referred to as the "burn box."

Since April, more than 5 million gallons of oil have been ignited in more than 165 burns. No statistics are available as to the number of turtles and other marine creatures trapped and ignited in those burns. BP executives must be breathing a huge collective sigh of relief over that.

The Times story follows a team of turtle researchers as they cruise near Deepwater Horizon, shadowing the boom boats’ paths in an effort to save any turtles before they are incinerated. Not that the poor creatures have a chance for survival anyway.

"We've seen the oil covering the turtles so thick they could barely move, could hardly lift their heads," said Blair Witherington, a research scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. As for their almost certain death by either suffocation or fire, he conceded, "I won't pretend to know which is the nastiest."

In one case, the crew watched helplessly as a long, thick clump of seaweed was gathered by BP boats and burned — seaweed they were sure was full of sea turtles.

"In a perfect world, they'd gather up the material and let us search it before they burned it," Witherington said. "But that connection hasn't been made. The lines of communication aren't there." At least the team was able to save 11 turtles that day, all of them coated with oil.

Read the rest of the article here

Here's how to help:

* The National Wildlife Federation is working with the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, and is encouraging anyone in the southern Louisiana area looking to help to reach out through its website;
* The International Bird Rescue and Research Center has sent a team of specialists to the region to help with any oiled wildlife. If you spot oiled wildlife, call the Wildlife Reporting Hotline at 866-557-1401. Please note that oiled birds (or any other oiled wildlife) should not be captured, but reported to the hotline;
* The National Audubon Society is recruiting volunteers to be trained to respond to the oil spill. They are also encouraging members of the public to contact the Interior Department and encourage them to halt the expansion of offshore oil drilling in the eastern United States;
* Alabama residents are asked to contact the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program at 251-431-6409;
* Or contact the Mobile Baykeeper at 251- 433-4229 to volunteer anywhere along the Gulf Coast;
* Save Our Seabirds is a Florida bird rescue group that is looking for volunteers as its response team prepares to help oiled wildlife. To help, call 941-388-3010;