Growing up and still to this day, I have always loved visiting aquariums on both the east and west coasts. When I was younger, I remember spending my time exploring and observing the fish and sharks swim around the tanks. I was, and still am, fascinating with touching the stingrays, horseshoe crabs, sea anemones, starfish, and so on. Ever since I can recall, I have been fond of coastal wildlife and marine animals. Because wildlife is an important aspect of our environment, let’s take a looks at the different types of species and most harmed by this oil spill.
Due to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, various wildlife species have suffered and died as a result. So you may be asking, just how badly has it affected our wildlife? Julia Kumari Drapkin from GlobalPost identifies threatened species in her article “10 animals most at risk from Gulf oil spill”. This list includes North Atlantic bluefin tuna, sea turtles, sharks, marine mammals, brown pelican, oysters, shrimp and blue crab, Menhaden and marsh-dwelling fish, beach nesting and migratory shorebirds, and migratory songbirds. In another article “16 Birds Threatened by the BP Gulf Oil Spill” published by The Daily Green, it is discusses how these species of birds, some even endangered, were affected due the destruction and contamination of their habitats.
Thousands of these birds and large numbers of turtles were found with their bodies soiled with oil and rescued by cleanup crews. A great number of these wildlife species, especially fish and underwater marine life, were not so fortunate and did not recover from the oil.
Here are a few questions to ponder until next time… Why didn’t they survive? How did the oil pollutants specifically affect each species? Was it the toxins released by the oil or the consistency of the oil itself that harmed the wildlife? These are some of the questions that will be discovered in my next blog later this week!
WOW. It’s very sobering to actually see the effects of the Gulf oil spill in writing. It’s hard to imagine that Americans have gotten so caught up with making money and expanding our horizons that we are destroying the MOST important thing in our lives, THE ENVIRONMENT. We are alive because of the trees that give us oxygen and we should be thanking nature every day for its beauty, not taking advantage of it. One thing I don’t think the people in today’s American society understand is that there is ONLY ONE ENVIRONMENT. We can’t trade in the Earth after we have exploited the resources for a brand new one. The human race gets one chance to prosper and currently our priorities are out of whack because we are so focused on being the best. I honestly feel as though the majority of Americans are devoting all of their time to a. obtaining more money, b. trying to figure out how to do things the best and quickest way. Humans are competitive in nature, but this drive is DRIVING us to destroy our surroundings. A small group of people in the country are noticing the fallacies in our current disposition and are acting as our moral conscience. This small minority needs to envelope the whole country and priorities need to be rearranged, or the one environment we have is going to go to dust. I hope that through your blog more people can understand the injustices we are doing to our environment and speak up.
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