"Tiny birds, big trouble; Migration to gulf a new threat to endangered plovers" by Beth Daley, Globe Staff | July 3, 2010
Pity the piping plover.
The sand-colored shorebird had all but disappeared by the 1980s along the East Coast, as the beaches it nests on were developed and visited more often by people.
Efforts to save it by restricting vehicles on beaches sparked a backlash — there was even a Facebook page called “I Hate the Piping Plover.’’
Now, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico appears to be the tiny white bird’s latest nemesis.
Plovers are beginning to fly south as part of an annual migration to gulf shores now fouled with oil. Two weeks ago, bird specialists found the season’s first two piping plovers on the remote Chandeleur Islands off Louisiana, where oil has already washed up. More birds will arrive in the next month and stay on gulf beaches through the winter....
They won't be coming back, Massachusetts.
The bird is the latest in a series of New England species — bluefin tuna and sea turtles are others — whose populations may suffer because they spend part of their life in the gulf.
Unlike seabirds that spend most of their time in the water, piping plovers prefer the shore and are best known for their short bursts of running in the flat, muddy area between the high tide mark and the water line. Specialists fear some may become coated in oil that washes ashore, but they are also concerned the birds’ food source — tiny worms and other marine life — may become polluted and, in turn, poison the birds.
Once, piping plovers were common along the Atlantic Coast, but they were heavily hunted — along with other shorebirds — for their feathers, used in hats. Protected in 1918 by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the birds’ populations rose through the 1940s, but after World War II began declining again, in part because development ate up areas where they nested.
Increased use of beaches is also blamed: The birds can be almost impossible to spot against the backdrop of sand and pebbles, and their habit of nesting in the open on beaches placed them in harm’s way. If they were not inadvertently killed, they often were disrupted enough to abandon nesting areas.
In 1986, the Atlantic population of the tiny shorebird — with only 790 breeding pairs identified along the East Coast — was listed as threatened under the Federal Endangered Species Act, and soon, some beaches were closed to vehicles, and in some rare cases, people, to protect the nests.
Massachusetts became the focal point in many ways for the fight between public vehicle access and shorebird protection, as some beach users protested off-limits areas. But aggressive recovery efforts for the birds — an army of volunteers fences off nests and even patrols them to keep people and predators away — have paid off. In 1986, there were just 137 pairs of piping plovers, or pips, in the state. In 2009, there were 575 pairs....
And public sentiment appears to be changing; when piping plovers began nesting on rollicking and busy Revere Beach in recent years, beachgoers took it upon themselves to steer clear of the birds.
Now, some worry that painstaking effort may be undercut by the gulf leak.
“Even a small amount of oil’’ can be harmful, said Ellen Jedrey, assistant director of the coastal water bird program of Mass Audubon, because the birds spend much of their time preening feathers with their beaks and can ingest the oil. “We are definitely worried.’’
And it is not just piping plovers. Oystercatchers — those comical-looking black and white birds with the large orange beak — also winter in the gulf, as do other plover species. Scientists are also worried about a slew of other birds that make a stopover in the gulf before heading farther south.
Scientists don’t know for sure how many Massachusetts piping plovers winter in the gulf, but....
--more--"Take a good look, readers, because we shan't see his likes again:
There are 23 pairs of piping plovers on Long Beach. (John Tlumacki/Globe Staff)
"Plymouth urged to ban vehicles to aid plovers" by June Q. Wu, Globe Correspondent | July 13, 2010
“They’ve adapted to predators and storm tides over thousands of years,’’ said Scott Hecker, a coastal water bird specialist and executive director of the Massachusetts-based Goldenrod Foundation, which filed an appeal with the state’s Division of Fisheries and Wildlife in April....
And it was the oil that killed them.
The oil that would have remained safely underground had BP not been there.
The group’s efforts have been met with much resistance, as beachgoers join to fight what they perceive as an encroachment on their right to enjoy the Plymouth shore....
All academic now. They ain't coming back.
For regular beachgoers, the piping plover has inspired emotions ranging from short-lived annoyance to rage — 44 people have joined a “I Hate the Piping Plover’’ Facebook group....
Does the ENVIRONMENTAL WAR CRIME inspire such hate?
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Speaking of which:
"A wounded Gulf of Mexico, an elusive prognosis; Spill’s toll hard to tally in area vast, complex" by David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post | July 6, 2010
WASHINGTON — How dead is the Gulf of Mexico?
It is perhaps the most important question of the
But they are so sure of global fart-misting, sigh.
Shut up, WaPo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is about PROTECTING CORPORATIONS from COURTROOM LIABILITIES!
In the 2 1/2 months since the spill began, the gulf has been examined by an armada of researchers — from federal agencies, universities, and nonprofit groups. They have brought back vivid snapshots of a sea under stress: sharks and other deep-water fish suddenly appearing near shore, oil-soaked marshes turning deathly brown, clouds of oil swirling in deep water.
But, with key gaps remaining in their data, there is wide disagreement about the big picture.
This is REALLY INSULTING to YOU, Americans!!
Some researchers have concluded that the gulf is being spared an ecological disaster. Others think ecosystems that were already in trouble before the spill are now being pushed toward a brink.
You go try living in that water or on that shore and see how you do.
I won't wait for you to get back to me (just like the plover)!!!
“The distribution of the oil, it’s bigger and uglier than we had hoped,’’ said Roger Helm, a US Fish and Wildlife Service official and the lead scientist studying the spill for the Interior Department.
“The possibility of having significant changes in the food chain, over some period of time, is very real. The possibility of marshes disappearing . . . is very real.’’
Blame it on the CRABS!
Helm said that his prognosis for the spill had worsened in the past week as the amount of oily shoreline increased from Louisiana to Florida, despite cleanup efforts. “This just outstrips everybody’s capability’’ to clean it up, he said.
Yesterday, Texas officials reported tar balls have washed up on one of the state’s beaches for the first time.
Yet research on the entire gulf has mainly occurred in the background, as public attention has focused on the crisis at BP’s leaking wellhead.
The MSM has done that! I have been CRAVING INFORMATION about the LIFE down there! That is why I'm so far behind on these MSM PoS.
The Gulf of Mexico is a 600,000-square-mile sea which contains swirling currents, sun-baked salt marshes, and dark, cold canyons patrolled by sperm whales.
Related: A Whale of a Drought in Peru
Complicating matters is that even before the spill began in late April, this patient was already sick.
In recent years, Louisiana has been losing a football field’s worth of its fertile marshes to erosion every 38 minutes. In the gulf itself, pollutants coming from the Mississippi River’s vast watershed helped feed a low-oxygen “dead zone’’ bigger than the entire Chesapeake Bay.
The REAL DANGER to our planet! POLLUTION!
Measuring the spill’s damage, then, requires distinguishing it from the damage done by these other man-made problems.
Globe said it was a NATURAL disaster!
See: The Oily Lies of the Boston Globe
So what is up, Glob, and why you alway$ blaming u$ for everything?
So far, even the simplest-sounding attempts to measure the spill’s impact have turned out to be complex.
PFFFFFT!!
That difficult to measure, WaPo?
The official toll of dead birds is about 1,200, a fraction of the 35,000 discovered after the
EVERYTHING OFFICIAL is and should be CALLED into QUESTION!
They LIE on EVERY F***ING FRONT!!!!!!
Officials can count only the birds they can find, and many think a number of oily birds have sought refuge in the marshes.
That's like finding refuge from a fire in a burning building -- no refuge at all.
“It’s an instinctive response: They’re hiding from predators while they recover,’’ said Kerry St. Pé, head of a government program that oversees Louisiana’s Barataria Bay marshes. “They plan to recover, of course, and they don’t. They just die.’’
And BP and the government keep you away from that from what I have read.
Other scientists have focused on more subjective measures of the gulf’s health — not counting the dead, but studying the behavior of wildlife, the movements of oil, and the state of larger ecosystems. For them, solid answers are even more elusive.
I'll be sure to give the scum's deaths the same consideration.
For example: Is the oil killing off Louisiana’s coastal marshes? State officials have said in interviews that they’ve seen it coating the grasses and mangroves that hold the region’s land in place.
“The marsh grasses, the canes, the mangrove are dying. They’re stressed and dying now,’’ said Robert Barham, secretary of the state’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. “There’s very visible evidence that the ecosystem is changed.’’
Yeah, and they WERE ALIVE BEFORE!!!
But Paul Kemp of the National Audubon Society said he flew over the same area and saw a different picture: The oil’s damage was relatively small, at least in comparison with the marsh’s existing problems.
“Here, we have a patient that’s dying of cancer, you know, and now they have a sunburn, too,’’ Kemp said.
“What will kill coastal Louisiana is not this oil spill,’’ he added. “What will kill coastal Louisiana is what was killing it before this oil spill,’’ including erosion and river-control projects that have reduced the buildup of new land.
I think he has been out in the sun too long.
Further offshore, federal scientists and university researchers have disagreed about the existence of “plumes’’ of dissolved or submerged oil. Several educators have reported finding underwater oil dozens of miles from the spill: Sometimes, they reported it was so well dissolved that the water appeared clear. In other situations, they found what they thought to be oil globs the size of golf balls.
Yeah, who knows, right?
Related: The Future of the Gulf of Mexico
And how about taking a look down, Globe?
"Under the sand, oil remains hidden from easy cleanup; Some argue that nature should run its course" by Jay Reeves, Associated Press | July 8, 2010
GULF SHORES, Ala. — There’s a dirty secret buried under Gulf of Mexico beaches after cleanup workers scrape away the oil washing ashore.
Walk to a seemingly pristine patch of sand, plop down in a chair, and start digging with your bare feet, like everyone does at the beach. Chances are you will walk away with gooey tar between your toes.
Related: Allegations emerge BP is dumping sand
Let's see if the MSM dumps more sand on the story:
So far, cleanup workers hired by
Like the AmeriKan MSM coverage of the crisis.
The company is planning a deeper cleaning program that could include washing or incinerating sand once the leak is stopped off the coast of Louisiana.
Some observers question whether it’s better to just leave it alone and let nature run its course, in part because oil that weathers on beaches is not considered as much of a health hazard as fresh crude. Some environmentalists and local officials, however, fret about harm to the ecosystem and tourism....
Orange Beach, a popular tourist stretch reaching to the Florida state line, was stained by a new wave of tar balls and brown, oil-stained foam yesterday after days of relatively oil-free surf, but few tourists were around to see the mess.
Related: Getting a Glass of Water From the Gulf of Mexico
Isn't it supposed to be green or blue?
Officials at BP, which leased the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded in April, creating the largest oil disaster in US history, say they want to clean up the spill completely, eventually. Mark DeVries, BP’s deputy incident commander in Mobile, envisions a time when no one can tell what hit the beaches during the summer of oil.
He is as NUTS as OBAMA!!
“That’s our commitment — to return the beaches to the state they were before,’’ Devries said. “We’re referring to it as polishing the beaches.’’
Yeah, well, you are polishing something!
Chuck Kelly knows what a job that will be. He works at Gulf State Park and has been watching as tides bury oil deposits — slicks hundreds of yards long and inches deep — before cleaning crews can reach them.
“Some oil comes in with a wave, and another wave covers it with sand,’’ he said. “It’s just like a rock or a shell. There’s all sorts of things buried in this sand. Now, there’s oil.’’
George Crozier, a marine scientist and director of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, said there’s only one real reason to dig up the buried oil: tourism.
“Buried is buried. It will get carved up by a hurricane at some point, but I see no particular advantage to digging it up,’’ he said. “It’s a human environmental hazard only because people don’t want to go to the beach if it’s got tar balls on it.’’
Or get sick with all the chemicals in the water.
Judy Haner, a marine scientist with The Nature Conservancy, favors deep-cleaning because the sand is home to small creatures such as sand fleas that form the base of the coastal food chain.
Dead.
“They’re the ones exposed to [oil] every tidal cycle, and they’re living in the sand,’’ she said. “It’s the bioaccumulation up the chain that is problematic.’’
That means you could be poisoned, too, American!
No matter the solution, local officials and would-be beachgoers are frustrated and hope their favorite spots can be saved....
Also see: In effort to save sea turtles, egg evacuation is underway
In other developments:
Choppy seas held up oil skimming operations all along the coast. Rough waves have halted offshore skimming in Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana for more than a week.
So what? Chop will bury oil -- or so I was told.
The Obama administration has asked a federal court in Louisiana to reinstate the ban on deepwater drilling in the gulf, saying the moratorium was a rational response to the unparalleled emergency of the BP oil leak....
Related: Court rejects push to reimpose drilling ban
The action has put hundreds of people who operate and service deepwater wells out of work. Politicians along the coast have called the moratorium a case of federal overkill that threatens the livelihood of the region. Last month, a federal judge agreed and issued an order blocking enforcement of the moratorium....
He had conflicts of interest.
--more--"
Getting to be lunch time, readers, and I am sure am hungry.
Walking a Boston Globe beach will do that to you.
"Oil flows freely as BP removes cap; New dome could be operational within the week" by Tom Breen, Associated Press | July 11, 2010
NEW ORLEANS — In a separate development yesterday, a federal agency inspecting the gulf fishing catch said shrimp, grouper, tuna, and other seafood caught at the fringes of the oil spill are safe to eat.
You first.
Actually, I think I'll order something else, thanks.
To date, roughly 400 samples of commonly consumed species caught mostly in open waters — and some from closed areas — have been chemically tested by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Officials say none so far has shown concerning levels of contaminants....
Yeah, I'm going to believe this lying government, right.
NOAA and the Food and Drug Administration began catching seafood species in the gulf within days of the April 20 rig explosion. The agency is mostly looking for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, the most common carcinogenic components of crude oil.
The first line of defense in keeping tainted seafood from the market is the closing of about one-third of federal gulf waters to commercial fishing....
Seafood inspectors also have been trained to sniff out oily product. One fish sample has failed the smell test, but did not show concerning levels of contaminants, Kevin Griffis of the Commerce Department said Friday.
Commerce Department $aid, huh?
What are you having for lunch?
Still, Don Kraemer, who is leading the FDA’s gulf seafood safety efforts, said the government isn’t relying on testing alone. “The reason we have confidence in the seafood is not because of the testing, it’s because of the preventive measures that are in place,’’ such as fishing closures, he said....
Into the woods it goes.
--more--"
I have to tell you, readers, I don't really care to read or watch the concealing American media on this issue anymore. That's why it has taken a week to post more on it.
I have been going HERE to find out what the MSM won't tell you and because he seems to pare out some of the more sensationalist set of stories swirling around this issue. Or you can see what I have posted in the file I created for the crisis.
What you find is that the BLOGS are LEADING the MSM on this issue as THEY are RESPONDING to us after WEEKS have passed. It's discouraging and sad; however, it is just one more item and issue over which they are not to be believed.
