Category: Gulf of Mexico

Hope

Hope

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Today I visited the Theodore, Alabama, Oiled Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. For the first time since first coming back to Alabama to document the BP Oil Crisis in mid-May, I have hope.

I have witnessed so much disorganization with cleanup crews, local, state and federal governments and have left the beaches very frustrated and angry, not just at BP but at all the agencies involved. Today’s experience at the rehab facility was a breath of fresh air for me.

Under the guidance and direction of Dr. Heidi Stout, Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research director, the Theodore center is doing an amazing job of helping wildlife. FINALLY! Something related to this oil crisis is working. (Please clap out loud and dance). Along with staff from all over the country, Dr. Stout provides excellent care for oiled birds and other animals.

When a bird is captured, it is stabilized over a period lasting from 1 to 3 days. It is treated medically and monitored. Then the bird is cleaned and, depending on the bird’s size, cleaning can take 45 minutes (pelicans) to 10 minutes (gulls). They are cleaned in diluted Dawn in 104 to 105 degree water, their body temperature. They are thoroughly rinsed and kept for two weeks or so for monitoring and recovery.

The center has been open since early May and was fully prepared to receive wildlife prior to any known oilings in Alabama. So far they have treated 50 animals successfully. Dr. Stout and her staff give us hope that agencies can work together effectively and produce an organized, well-run program. Agencies involved in the center include the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service. The center is funded by BP.

These northern gannets have been cleaned and are recovering nicely. Visiting this center gives me hope that we can come out on the other side of this disaster. Step by step, one bird at a time, we have hope.

The Big Disconnect

The Big Disconnect

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Imagine seeing this on the beach, smelling almost overwhelming heated diesel smell, and watching people in protective gear cleaning the beach. What would you do?

Would you be curious and concerned and walk out on the beach? Maybe take a few photographs? Touch it? Take a bit of oil as a souvenir?

Or would you stare blindly at cleanup workers, laying on your beach chair sipping cocktails while your children frolic in the surf? It’s not that I want to be a party pooper but now is the time for brains to engage and synapses to fire correctly. We are, you see, living in a very toxic environment…in case you’ve been in a media blackout for the past 70 days.

Just ask the sea gulls. I witnessed several whose feet were showing signs of walking in the toxic sludge. The webbing between their toes is beginning to ‘melt’ away. I know many folks don’t want to hear this news but I can only report what I see and feel. I don’t want to be disconnected from this horror because I am a part of it as are all of us who drive cars and use petroleum products.

I had dinner with a friend who has been on the beach a good bit during this crisis and she shares the same concern I have–there’s a schism in many people’s psyches. They see the oil, smell it and see cleanup crews lining the beaches but somehow cannot make the leap to understand that their kids don’t need to play in it and they don’t need to sit out for hours in the hot sun breathing the fumes.

Is this part of a larger disconnect our society has about cause and effect, about conservation of resources versus rape of the environment. Are people really that out of touch with the physical reality of now?

Turtle Prayers

Turtle Prayers

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Today the Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center released a plan formed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA-Fisheries and the Florida Wildlife Commission to translocate an anticipated 700 sea turtle nest eggs this season along the Florida Panhandle and the Alabama Gulf Coast. This is not an event to be taken lightly as nest disturbance risks killing the eggs; however, given the oiled beaches and waters, biologists think this is the best plan for the potential hatchlings.
In this extraordinary plan, permitted surveyors search the beaches at night for sea turtle tracks. Since females come on land only to lay eggs, the tracks lead to nests. The nests are marked and left to incubate until a point is reached in the incubation cycle where disturbance is less likely to injure eggs.

Experts will then place the eggs in special containers and transport them to a secure, climate-controlled location. Once the hatchlings emerge, they will be released on the east-central coast of Florida.

Under normal conditions a retrieval, removal and remote hatching of an entire season’s nesting would never be considered but given the unlikely survival of hatchlings due to oil in the water and on the shore, scientists feel they must make this drastic move.

The majority of sea turtles nesting along the northern Gulf Coast are loggerheads but we also have Kemp’s ridley, leatherback and green turtles.

As you go through your day say a little prayer for the mother turtles coming ashore to lay eggs. They are moving through toxic waters onto shores that are sometimes covered in oil and dispersant chemicals. Just the task of surviving to lay eggs this year is difficult. Then…say more prayers for the babies as they lay safely tucked inside their eggs. May their ocean dreams be filled with much love.

Image of green sea turtle in rehab with helpers Hans (holding turtle) and Tim Tristan, DVM …Texas.

BP Offers “Elaborate” Funeral to Boat Captain’s Widow

BP Offers “Elaborate” Funeral to Boat Captain’s Widow

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A BP representative offered the widow of Captain William Allen “Rookie” Kruse as an elaborate a funeral as she wanted to give her husband. More than just a slap in her face, this finally gives us the bottom line of what BP just doesn’t get. It’s not about money or fancy good-byes to one whose life was intertwined with the sea, it’s so much more.

For those lucky people who live their lives on the Gulf of Mexico, the connection they feel to Her is more than dollars and cents. She becomes part of them. Their lives are enriched by knowing Her and the creatures who live in and around Her. When She begins to die, a part of each person dies as well.
Their hearts are one with the sea. Watching the Gulf become choked with oil, witnessing the devastating effect on wildlife, and breathing fumes of death while working to help in the cleanup takes a toll on all involved. Even though these guys are old salts and may be a bit hard-edged, at their core they recognize the priceless value of a healthy sea, something BP cannot understand.
For so many decades BP and other oil company’s focus has been on profit…the ‘drill baby drill’ mentality. Our government has endorsed this behavior. They have not stopped to consider the consequences of their actions. Everything has been about money, the bottom line, and increased gain in their stock. That’s their modus operandi.

We are being given a golden moment in which we can re-educate BP and other oil companies about true values and morality of a higher level. They must learn from fishermen and children, scuba divers and surfers, residents and visitors, and from boat captains like “Rookie” about what it means to truly love…not money and profit but the magnificent resources of which we are caretakers.
May Captain Rookie’s death serve as a warning to all who put profits first instead of natural resources. May his life teach us all to value the wondrous gifts of nature and be honorable stewards.

Sweeping Our Past Clean, Preparing for the Future

Sweeping Our Past Clean, Preparing for the Future

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While visiting Gulf Islands National Seashore today I observed workers sweeping tiny tar balls into dust pans. As I stood gazing out over the Gulf, watching billions of baby blobs of oil roll in the surf, I thought that it is time we clean up our past mistakes and clear the way for a new future.

I’m NOT saying hide our mistakes, like BP is doing by using dispersant, but own them, clean them up and lay the groundwork for a new and better future. We must learn from our past, both the mistakes and the successes. In our nurturing the earth, we create fertile ground for a brighter, healthier future.