WDC Blog - From the Front Line

World Oceans Day, 8 June 2010. Eulogy for the Gulf of México. Let us now remember and celebrate the life of what was one of the most species diverse and productive corners of the world ocean: the now beleaguered Gulf of México, its brilliance long to be stained by the reality and the legacy of one of the world’s largest ever oil spills.

Supposedly now being contained on the north side of the Gulf, the spill was last compared to the size of Luxembourg but that doesn’t account for the three-dimensional penetration of the mile-plus water column.

The human addiction to oil — and corporate greed shouting out in its willingness to take extraordinary risks for profit —has much to answer for.

Of course, the Gulf itself is not dead. But sadly the world will now think of oily destruction whenever they hear “Gulf of Mexico”. How long it will take the Gulf to get back to “normal”?

For now, the bodies pile up: seabirds, turtles, fish, dolphins. The fishing boats lie rusting in the marinas. The beaches are near empty. And all over the world, the people who trusted the can’t-miss blue chip BP with their pensions and investments, will suffer, too. Even the oil workers on other rigs in the Gulf have been choking on the fumes, and many have been evacuated. Spare a thought for those species that have nowhere to go but to try to live, and sooner or later die, in the mess.

Let us now remember this sea of gold. Please remember the gold was never the oil; it was the fish, shrimp, dolphins, whales, the sea itself. This golden sea will long be tarnished.

Let this at least be a warning to those who may become similarly blinded by the promise of false gold beneath the sea, eager and willing to risk our future, and our children’s future. We can’t let it happen again.

The New Scientist raises an interesting question in its 11th November edition. The article notes that 'Sounds thought to cause only temporary hearing loss have destroyed nerve cells in the ears of mice.' It would appear that '... noises that aren't loud enough to affect hearing thresholds can still cause permanent damage to ear cells.'                   

The article goes onto note that when mice were exposed to a 100-decibel noise source, roughly equivalent to a motorcycle engine, several tests indicated that this noise level caused no long-lasting changes in hearing threshold. 'Under the gaze of a microscope, however, damage was seen to the part of hair cells that transmits sound via chemical interactions with nearby nerves. A year later, the damage had seemingly spread to nerves that
transmit sound to the brain (Journal of Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.2845-09.2009). 

But what is the importance of this  study for cetacean research? It would appear that a lot of research on ocean noise appears to concentrate on minimizing loud underwater noises to estimated thresholds. But what is really happening to whales and dolphins exposed to such noise? We may not be able to make such a leap from specially bred mice that have similar hearing characteristics as humans as used in this study to extrapolate to cetaceans, but lets also not dismiss our questions simply because we are talking of mice and men.

If long term damage is being caused to cetaceans are we yet to see long term conservation impacts? For such creatures that rely on sound to communicate, feed and generally 'exist' in a world of sound we may be storing up problems for the future.

WDCS has always called for a precautionary approach when it comes to noise pollution, yet we are often told mitigation methods employed by the extractive industries and the world's navies are 'appropriate'. Well it may be that there is not always an immediately evident impact, but this study may make us wonder what legacy we are leaving in our oceans.       

There is  a new feature film on Noise pollution just launching in Germany                                                                                                                                                                             

Further to our comments on the pollution issue in whale products we note that Mattilsynet, the Norwegian Food Safety Authority has continued the advisory for pregnant and nursing women against eating whale meat “due to high levels of mercury that the meat can contain”.  The same is true for seal meat “from the Vestisen area”.  (see http://matportalen.no/Emner/Gravide )

 

The Health Directorate has also produced a brochure (http://www.helsedirektoratet.no/vp/multimedia/archive/00118/Gravid_118459a.pdf

Seems that the issue is hopefully getting through to the public - lets see what the reaction will be

I know it is cliché, but I honestly could not think of a better title for this post.

SkyTruth
obtained these new photographs, apparently taken from a nearby vessel
shortly after the fire was extinguished. The photos clearly show the
severe damage sustained by the Montara oil platform and the attached
West Atlas drill rig. These photos are from an anonymous source, so
their integrity can't vouch for, but they closely resemble this
post-fire photo taken by media in the same period and so seem to be
legitimate. WDCS join SkyTruth in thanking the photographer who took
these shots and is allowing us to make them available to the public. 

Pollution has long been known to affect marine life with disasterous effects. The oil spill in the Timor Sea is a direct and current example. Algal blooms have been suspected of being linked to pollution by some scientists, but it would seem that algal blooms are having a very real affect on marine mammals.

It would seem now that the toxins produced in algal blooms have been shown to affect the hippocampus in sealions. The hippocampus is responsible for our animal's spatial awareness and it may be this impact on the hippocampus is causing sealions to get lost and stray into unusual places.

I wonder how much pollution is having an affect on cetaceans? Can we make the leap and suggest that pollution may be affecting the hippocampus of other marine mammals we see in strandings?

Strandings have a large number of causal factors but maybe this work takes us another step towards understanding the role pollution plays.