Gulf Coast Oil Spill

A BP WIldlife Volunteer Tells His Story

I just stumbled upon this blog from a guy who worked hard to become a wildlife volunteer during the BP disaster.  Like many, he had experience handling wildlife and like many, what he witnessed from the paid responders was anything but professional.  In this time of National Crisis BP, our governing agencies and national conservation organizations seemed utterly content with inexperienced personnel handling the highly sophisticated and delicate job of wildlife capture and rehabilitation.  Thanks to so many people like Douglas, Darlene and Kaya Eschete, and the many wildlife experts from the IBRRC who managed to perform in such an uncooperative and hostile environment.

Here is an excerpt from Douglas Doneson's blog:

"These people were not volunteers like my friend and I. They were being paid by BP to “clean and rescue birds.” But in actuality they were injuring healthy birds. Healthy, in nature is a relative concept. Almost all wild animals have parasites, injuries, etc. Before a person, educated in wildlife recovery, catches an animal they must weigh its injury against the stress the animal will go through when it is caught, but I digress."

To read the full story please click here. 

Gulf Shrimp Tests Positive for Oil.

Nancy, (Mac) Mackenzie out of her own curiosity this week bought some shrimp in Venice, Louisiana and had them tested without deveining the shrimp.  The tests came back positive for oil, and on this week's telephone conference call she asked Rear Adm. Paul D. Zukunf about the federal tests.

From today's Operational Update Call with Rear Admiral Paul Zukunft - (see the entire transcript at THIS ADDRESS


The testing results on Nancy MacKenzie's shrimp are here.



Operator: At this time, I’d like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press star then number one on your telephone key pad. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of... Chris Kirkham with the “Times-Picayune.” 

Paul Zukunft: Good morning, Chris. I’m ready for your question.

Operator: Chris has withdrawn his question. Your next question comes from the line of Nancy McKenzie with NOLA Emergency Response.

Nancy McKenzie: Hi, Admiral. Thanks for taking my call. Just out of my own curiosity, I recently bought a couple of pounds of shrimp in Venice and had the veins tested.

Paul Zukunft: Yes.

Nancy McKenzie: And they came back with 193 parts per million of oil. And I was wondering if you could comment on that.

Paul Zukunft: OK. Yes, no I’m not aware of that of that particular test. I’ve been to the lab in Pascagoula where they actually do the sensory and then the chemical tests over there. And then when I’ve seen the shrimp that’s been tested, it is deveined. So, you know, the shrimp has been deveined and deshelled when they do the analysis. So all I can comment are the protocols that we’re using and the fact that we’re not finding any concentration of PAH in those tests. So that’s new information and I’ll have our environmental unit follow up on that.

Nancy McKenzie: Yes, please do. Because a lot of the people down here cook in shell and cook with veins in. So...

Paul Zukunft: Fully aware of that.

Nancy McKenzie: All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Paul Zukunft: All right. Thank you.

Teleconference to Provide Operational Update on Deepwater Horizon/BP Oil Spill Response Efforts

November 2, 2010 | 3:25:25 PM EDT

WHO: Rear Adm. Paul D. Zukunft, Federal On-Scene Coordinator for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill response.

WHAT: Teleconference to provide an operational update on Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill response and recovery efforts.

WHEN: Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2010, 9:00 a.m. CDT, 10:00 a.m. EDT.

The call-in number is (866) 304-5784 for domestic callers and (706) 643-1612 for international callers.

Conference ID # is 22861579.

 

Contracted Wildlife Workers Shed Some Light on Their Experiences in the Gulf of Mexico

Rebecca Dmytryk and Jay Holcomb, both wildlife workers from the IBRRC, one of the groups contracted  by British Petroleum to capture, clean and rehab birds in the Gulf of Mexico air some thoughts on their experiences while responding to the catastrophe.  In this article they address several of the issues that I witnessed and blogged about during my time covering the disaster in the Gulf.  They finally talk about being excluded from the capture efforts in the field by USFWS and LDWF as well as the near complete failure to search for, capture, or even look for affected wildlife at sea, closer to the site of the oil gusher.

This is a good and important read to begin to understand the wildlife response mission in the Gulf:

Santa Cruz Sentinel Article Found Here:

Also something to think about is an excerpt from a Florida wildlife rescue document.  Please examine the fifth line of the second section.  Why would there be ANY mention of "remaining visible in areas of heavy public use."  It illustrates that much of the spill response was about P.R. , including the wildlife response.

Fish Kill and BP Cover Up Confirmed on Grand Isle by Jerry Moran

In light of recent comments made by LDWF and NOAA biologists in an article on CNSNews.com that there is no evidence that ANY fish died as a result of the oil spill I feel compelled to revisit a few photos from the first days of the spill and to repost some information and photos gathered just this week by intrepid New Orleans photo-journalist Jerry Moran.  Jerry found the stench of death every where on Grand Isle, and mounds of dead fish buried in the sand by BP clean up crews, just this week!!!

First, lets look at what Bo Boehringer of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said," Fish have died for seasonal related reasons, said Bo Boehringer, spokesman Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.", and “We’ve investigated fish kills, but none have yet been tied to oil impacts,” 

Here are some photos from May 23rd on Grand Terre Island.  We encountered MANY dead large Redfish and Black Drum that day. All of these fish were still there when I revisited the island later that week, meaning NONE had been tested by LDWF.

There was no fishing, commercial or recreational going on at this time, and there was no unusually warm water to cause these fish to die, not to mention that they were covered in oil!!!

Now, here's a Bottle-nosed Dolphin found in the end of August by Darlene Eschete and the World Animal Awareness Society on Raccoon Island.  This animal was freshly dead at the time of their report, and when we re-found it there was a small circular chunk which looked like a sample taken from the neck.  Had the animal died from oil contamination it would not show up in the skin or fat, but in the lungs and internal organs.  NO effort was made to test for these on this animal, and it was tagged with LDWF in florescent paint and left to rot.

I dare say that this animal should have been brought in and had a full autopsy performed on it to determine the actual cause of death.  Incidents like this point to the fact that wildlife agencies charged with responding to this disaster have not lived up to expectations, and when we read that only 8,367 birds died due to this disaster we must question the reality of this number.

Now back to Grand Isle, this week!!!  Reports of dead fish everywhere on Grand Isle hit the internet and social media outlets last week.  They were largely Redfish and Black Drum, both bottom dwellers which are very unlikely to be affected by low oxygen levels due to warmer water.  

Here is Jerry Moran's report:

"All of these images were taken October 21, 2010 in the area of Latitude 29.199 N, Longitude 90.042 W.

For the first time in a few weeks, I headed out to Grand Isle, Louisiana – primarily to document cleanup progress that has – or has not – been made since the spill response began.

Earlier in the week, I received information regarding a possible fish kill around Grand Isle, which I confirmed to be true. My first stop was the west end of the island. Upon arrival, I did not see many dead fish, but while walking along the jetties, I was hit by an overpowering stench of death and decay. Back in May, I smelled this same scent and found a mound of buried bull redfish and dolphin, so I decided to go back to that same spot to check it out.

When I was about 10 yards from a recognizable mound of sand, I started hearing the unmistakable buzz of flies.

What I found was truly indescribable visually, I had never seen so many flies and the smell nearly brought me to my knees. There were at least 40 to 60 large redfish, drum – and who knows what else – under a BP “death mound” of sand in the exact same spot that I found the decapitated dolphin and bull redfish in May.

I find it very disturbing that BP cleanup crews are simply burying large numbers of dead fish and other marine life without letting anybody know.
 

There was also another death mound about 20 yards away closer to the beach at Latitude 29.199 N, Longitude 90.047 W. The media continues to consistently disregard or overlook these occurrences, reporting that everything is just fine in the Gulf. I know these reports are untrue, based on what I am finding six months after the spill.

Additionally, more evidence of land farming (or burying oil) on the west end of the island is seen in the images of the levee resembling the Grand Canyon rock strata, Latitude 29.195 N, Longitude 90.055 W.

Images at Latitude 29.266 N, Longitude 89.953 W are from the east end of the island behind State Park, which is still closed to the public. I couldn’t get to the beach, but I observed heavy machinery, and the constant and overpowering stench of death coming from the other side of the levee.

New Report of Oil in Grand Isle and Volunteer Opportunities to Help

This was just received from a good friend who lives on Grand Isle.  The clean up efforts have dwindled from 47,000 to 16,000 people throughout the Gulf, and there are currently NO skimming operations at all in Barataria Bay.

"Drew - A shrimper stopped today and said that oil is coming in heavier than he had ever seen into Barataria Bay and it is all over the Sand Dollar  and there is oil on our beach in front of house"

Connie and her husband Gary live just over half way down the island, probably in zone 9, on the front beach.  "Heavier than he had ever seen"  means pretty darn bad.  I hope that the USFWS or LDWF are down there to revamp search and rescue operations.  I'll investigate and let you know. The Sand Dollar is the main marina on the East end of the island.  How much oil is OK to let contaminate the beaches and marshes??

Volunteer Opportunity

Deepwater Horizon response activities continue in coastal Louisiana and it may be months or years before we know the full extent of the impacts. The cooperating organizations of the Gulf Response Involvement team continue to offer opportunities in coastal restoration that help preserve and restoreLouisiana’s disappearing coast. Please join us for our next event.

 

Little Lake Planting

Tuesday, October 26^th, 2010

8:30 am to 3:00 pm

Depart from Lockport, LA

 

During the Planting event, GRIT will provide:

·         All required equipment, including trash bags, shovels, life vests, etc.

·         Food and refreshments to all volunteers

·         Plant Materials

·         First aid kits on site

·         An information and safety briefing prior to the day’s activities

 

Volunteers must be 18 years or older. The project site is located west of Lockport, LA and is accessible only by boat. Volunteers will meet in Lockport. Volunteers must provide their own transportation to Lockport and lodging, if required. Volunteers will be emailed details about the event, including the exact location, once they are registered.

 

Volunteers must register online at www.lagulfresponse.org prior to the October 25^th. The event is limited to 30 volunteers, so REGISTER TO HELP TODAY! 

 

New Gulf Oil Found In Barataria Bay, and Clean Up Non-Existent in the Water and on Wildlife Refuges

While the well may have been capped in July, oil continues to wash ashore throughout the Gulf coast.  On September 19^th, my last day in the Gulf I met with pharmacist and activist Pam Batson from Mobile Alabama to survey the beaches in Gulf Shores, Alabama.  We had seen a video on Youtube posted which showed large amounts of oil entering the backwater lagoon through one of the passes in that community, and a commenter had posted that they believed the whole video was staged and that what was being shown couldn’t be oil, so we decided to check it out first hand. 

 

Upon arrival at the beach, the smell of oil was nearly overwhelming, and within a very short time, both Pam and I had terrible headaches.  In a weird way, I was glad that Pam was suffering as well as it validated what I was feeling and have experienced through the months in the Gulf.  With the media not paying attention, and the nation seemingly ready to move on from the largest environmental catastrophe our nation has ever faced, sometimes I question the reality of my situation.  But no, it was obvious that the fumes were horrible, and someone was there to tell me that it’s not me who’s crazy, it’s the rest of the country who, despite all of the math and science are willing to believe statements from our own government like, ”over 75% of the oil has disappeared”.

 

We walked about 200 meters down the beach through copious tarballs scattered through the splash line of the beach, and you could see many more just off the beach in the water.   When we got to the small pass in the beach, there were a couple of people fishing the breach with the incoming tide, and there was oil everywhere.  You couldn’t walk in the surf without having oil stick to the bottom of your feet, and larger blobs of oil, exactly what the video showed were in the water.  Some of these blobs were a one foot squared and about 3 or 4 inches thick.

 Snowy Plover tracks in the mine field of oil on Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge.

Earlier that day I had been on Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge, and what I found there was even more disheartening to me.  As one of the only un-developed pieces of coastline from Pensacola to Mobile Bay, Bon Secour serves as a hugely important refuge for much of the wildlife in the area, including resident Snowy Plovers as well as migrating Piping Plovers.  There were tarballs covering nearly the entire 50-75 meter wide beach. After being deposited in the splash zone and wrack in the high tide line, the heavy winds had blown the tarballs all over the beach, and they existed in a high density almost to the far dune line.  I encountered a pair of Snowy Plovers here who had to navigate a veritable mine field of oil as they foraged along the debris of the tide line.  There was no clean up effort visible anywhere near this area.

 A Snowy PLover at Bon Secour on September 19th.  All of the brown dots are tarballs.

In fact, though the amount of oil that continues to wash ashore has not diminished at all, BP contractors charged with cleaning the beaches have been cut to a fraction of what they once were.  Even though their TV ads proclaim that they will be there to see this thing through to the end, they continue to put forth an effort that is no where near the level of severity of this environmental disaster, and our very own Government, Wildlife Agencies, and national environmental organizations seem content with allowing this to happen.  While some may be looking forward to habitat restoration in the region, they have all allowed a laughable response to this most urgent and pressing problem.  I don't know about the legality of picking this oil up, but I'm starting to think that ordinary citizens might start to organize their own clean up efforts to show what a herculean response looks like.

This is an exerpt from Steve Cardiff and Donna Dittman's most recent report from surveys of oiled birds on the barrier islands of Southern Louisiana;

Steve writes,"Still considerable patchy residual oiling across island with oil stains on rocks, and scattered dried pools of oil on sand and tidal flats, but oil has weathered and has disappeared from most plant stems; marsh vegetation appears generally healthy, but some small areas with totally dead spartina. Oil smell not as bad but still strong in spots.  No oiled birds encountered except for
immature Little Blue Heron with light oil."

and, " on the way back to Grand Isle from East Grand Terre Island we encountered substantial amounts of floating oil in Barataria Bay north of Grand Terre Island.  This
was reddish, snotty stuff in linear slicks, with the oily substance extending down into the water column.  We also saw more dispersed tiny blobs of this stuff scattered over wider areas of the bay.  Some of the denser slicks were covered with gas bubbles from apparent bacterial decomposition."

From Donna;" We were out Thurs-Fri – and saw some oil in the bay side of Grand Terre – no one skimming.  But, it’s more “dispersed” than the mats of gooey goop – but I think would still soil birds.  There was some of that on East Grand Terre."  Seen on October 8th!!!!

The results of the lame clean up effort.  Ghost Crabs excavate oil from their holes.  Is it illegal for Ghost Crabs to dig in Florida too?

 

Part 2: An Interview with LSU Ornithologist Dr. James Van Remsen About the Gulf Oil Disaster

“I hate to go back and Monday morning quarterback a lot of the decisions that were made, because I wasn’t there in the trailer at the time”

In Part one of my interview with Dr. James Van Remsen we spoke about research and LSU’s role in studying the oil spill, as well as the Unified Command’s response to the disaster. Dr. Remsen is a pre-eminent ornithologist and Professor in LSU’s Department of Natural Sciences as well as the curator of the Museum of Natural Sciences.  When we left off, Dr. Remsen was exploring the idea of separating the emotional response from the more scientific response often required when confronting environmental catastrophe’s like the Deepwater Blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.

 

Dr. Remsen: I want to make sure that you know, as far as the birds, the populations of birds, nothing makes me madder than seeing some bird covered in oil washed up on the beach.  You know, at the emotional level, or a crab, some poor crab.  It just really gets me.  I want to make clear that at least at the gut level that really gets me.

Drew: That was something I wanted to touch on.  You know, in the beginning (of the spill), there was the whole debate about euthanasia versus capture and rehab and the value in saving birds. Where do you stand? That is, on the individual level versus population dynamics and population biology.  I mean no person can walk by an oiled bird and not try and save it.

Dr. Remsen: Exactly, what kind of human would do that? You know, you’ve got no soul if you can’t feel bad about that and try to do something.

Drew: For the first part of June they were rescuing birds on Queen Bess Island, I mean they let Jeff Corwin do it, and he’s obviously not affiliated with any agency or anyone that has authority to do that, although I’m sure he has experience, and then when (hurricane) Alex passed in early July, pretty much all of the juvenal Royal Terns in the colony became oiled, and they have this protocol which I think is largely based on Pacific seabird colonies which are very different in structure and dynamics than colonies here. But on Queen Bess, and certainly Raccoon Island which is three miles long, the species are segregated, the Pelican area is totally different than the Tern area, and it would be very possible to go on to these islands without disrupting the whole colony, or really any major part of the colony, especially if you went on in the early morning.  You definitely could have rescued these birds without undo harm to the rest of the colony. I mean you could have swooped up many of these birds with a net, without leaving the boat.  And they categorically chose to not touch these birds, and they all died.  To me there has to be some other motivation going on.  Whether or not they didn’t want to deal with it, or they didn’t want to somehow become responsible for those bird’s lives.  I don’t know what was going on there.

Dr. Remsen: I mean, what do you do with them, once you net them.  Do you bring them to the rehab center or do you euthanize them?  You know, if you bring a thousand baby Royal Terns to a rehab center there’s no way. They’re going to die, at least a good percentage of them are going to die there, and besides, let’s say you successfully rehab them, you think a baby Royal Tern is going to be able to learn how to fish without Mom and Dad?

Drew: Yeah, every Royal Tern you see right now is following Mom and Dad, and being fed.

Dr. Remsen: They’re being fed, they’re begging, and even then they have a pretty high mortality rate.  Otherwise, we’d be knee deep in Royal Terns.  So, I don’t know , the humane thing in that case would probably be to euthanize them, but there’s no way that BP is going to go out there and do that, or even Wildlife and Fisheries, no.

Drew: No, our public sentiment would never allow that.

Dr. Remsen: No.  It’s just not worth it.  Even if it’s the right thing to do, it’s not worth it.

That’s the part of the debate that doesn’t interest me that much, at least as a scientist.  I mean, emotionally, a thousand dead baby Royal Terns kills me, but I try to separate that from OK, limited resources, what do we do, what’s best?

Drew: So speaking of resources, it seems to me that BP is a 97 billion dollar company, and that telemetry equipment exists.  It’s small. It’s very easy to have a receiver in a plane. They’ve got planes in the air all of the time anyway.  They could locate birds, and track their movements, and to my knowledge there’s been no effort to do anything like that with the rehabilitated oiled birds?

Dr. Remsen: No, none! Paul Conover on LAbird(Louisiana’s birding list serve) voiced that early on, and I agree with that one hundred percent.  At least in terms of evaluation, let’s find out!  We can dry lab it, we can think you know maybe the baby Royal Terns aren’t going to survive, or the adult Brown Pelicans will, but there are no data, there’s just people blabbering without any information to back them up.  You know something from a South African Penguin colony is not necessarily transferrable to our situation.  Lets get some information.  You know, the scientist in me wants that to happen.  I don’t want to do it.  It’s just not my thing but somebody should be doing that.  And BP could easily fund that.

Drew: And to me, it speaks to something a little more nefarious that “they” don’t want that data out there.  They don’t won’t to know the survivorship rate of these birds, especially if it’s low.

Dr. Remsen: Of course not.  You know that’s not going to stop the NSF from studying it.  It’s exactly the type of thing that the fund was set up to study,

Drew: But it seems to me that the bulk of birds that will be released, at least under normal circumstances have already been released, now they’re sitting on birds that are special cases, the window of opportunity has passed.

Dr. Remsen: Probably.  The opportunity is gone.  Let’s say you find out that 95% of the rehabbed birds die within the first month.  You think that’s going to stop the rehab people from getting out there next year? What it might do is cut down the funding for them, but the emotional response of trying to help those birds is not going to go away. As far as I’m concerned, if people want to spend their time and money rehabbing, every bird that they successfully rehab is great, but lets find out how to do it better.

Drew: I remember early on, there was some talk about captive breeding, etc.  Were you ever concerned on an immediate population level, were you ever worried that we would lose whole populations?

Dr. Remsen: Maybe a little, but no, actually I would say no.  I’m just a believer. I’ve seen it so many times.  The Brown Pelican, big huge bird, relatively slow reproducer, look at what happened to them here.  If the habitat is suitable, birds will saturate it, given enough generations and time. So I would have to say no, never been concerned about long-term population effects, maybe some short term, in terms of direct mortality.  I remain concerned about food and fish populations, and nest site availability, but not the direct mortality.

Drew:  With all of the effects that the clean up crews and abatement efforts had on beach nesting birds, do you think that the agencies dropped the ball on protecting some of these areas and colonies?

Dr. Remsen: Yes.  I think you could say that, but again, you’ve got to realize.  You were in the middle of that, you know, the whole organization, or disorganization of the whole thing, you know the command structure, and people making decisions on the fly.  I basically don’t fault anybody for anything.  I’m a believer in a sort of combination of chaos theory and catastrophe theory, and it takes a catastrophe like this to learn how to do it better the next time.  I hate to go back and Monday morning quarterback a lot of the decisions that were made, because I wasn’t there in the trailer at the time; you know, there’s a decision to make right now.  It would be really easy to go back and criticize a lot of those decisions, and some of them were really pretty dumb.  And you could say,” you know, why didn’t they call somebody and ask them their opinion, get some more feedback on this?” but then they would be criticized for not taking action fast enough, and they’re under stress, so I’m pretty forgiving on a lot of that stuff.  It’s easy for me to say, but if I had been down there seeing those guys bulldozing Plover nests and stuff like that, you know…  But that’s the emotional side of me, but try to get away from that, kind of big picture thing, cost benefit analysis type of thing. Pick your battles. I’d be lenient any way.  What I’m not lenient on is corruption or collusion, stuff like that.  I’m completely the opposite.

Drew: Do you feel like any of the national conservation organizations have stepped up to the plate during this disaster?

Dr. Remsen: I don’t have enough information to say for sure, and some of this data that is mysteriously proprietary, but I haven’t seen anything.  I have no evidence of anybody producing any information whatsoever. The ABA with their limited resources accomplished more in this oil spill than (other National Organizations) in terms of actually producing information and data, and getting the word out.  It’s incredible.  The comparison in efficiency is dramatic.  The money that ABA gave us to do those surveys, every single dollar of that goes toward producing data.  What birds are where and what percentage of them are oiled.  There isn’t a cent that doesn’t go into that.  You know for a few thousand dollars.  And we haven’t begun to use that.  We’ve got a long ways to go on it.  I don’t know how much money is going into doing these other things.  That’s the other thing. All of the data gathered from the ABA fund is public information.  It goes right into ebird and you can go on there right now and figure out what percentage of the birds are oiled and where, and we’re not just taking anybody’s data out there.  There are only a few people that we’re going to hire to go out there to do these surveys.  In a training session, you can’t inculcate someone with 20 years of field experience.  People are going to see oil where there’s none, or miss it when it’s there. Using those skilled observers at least we know we have the bird ID and numbers right.  And we will use the same observers over time so we can control for observer effect, and that’s what I worry about in these mass training sessions, is observer effect.  You know there’s so much noise(data) in there, especially if it’s subtle.  It’s one thing if the bird is covered in oil, but if it’s just staining it can be difficult to see.

Drew: One of my biggest concerns is the beachfront foragers, especially the Piping and Snowy Plovers.  Their populations are low enough that the threshold isn’t very high, for what could be potentially a massive effect on the near shore environment.  I want to recommend some active hazing in areas that remain heavily oiled. What do you think about hazing?

Dr. Remsen: I think it’s a great idea.  I don’t know anything about the effectiveness of it, but you know it would give someone on a three-wheeler a great mission!(laughter)  I don’t know how many times you have to chase a Piping Plover away before it actually gets out of there, you could be doubling back forever.

Drew: That’s the second part of the recommendation; to identify beaches that are relatively clean and designate them as sanctuaries, as sort of a refuge status and try and limit public access, at least for this winter.

Do you have any other recommendations, looking forward as to things that might help in terms of migration?

Dr. Remsen: No, well, this whole thing about migration I haven’t followed this, Well, I haven’t read too much about it, but I’m sure people jumped all over that whole “Short Stop” thing. You’re not going to shortstop a Sanderling.  The migratory Piping Plovers, what are you going to do?  That’s the habitat they want to go to. You’re absolutely dead on correct that it’s those splash zone, beach zone birds that are the ones you’re going to have to worry about, and in addition to the Plovers, you’ve got Sanderlings, Willets, Turnstones, and you’ve got major roosting areas for a lot of the Gulls and Terns, and I know they aren’t as sensitive, they don’t have the lack of margin for error, but that would be my second level of management concern.  I can’t think of anything offhand really.  I think that your idea, of herding them, but then again, how big are the remaining oiled areas?

Drew: They’re pretty small.  That’s the thing, if you do a flight over it, it becomes very obvious that this oil accumulated in pools on eddies and on points, which is where a lot of the gulls are roosting also, but the major heavy areas of concentration are in small areas, maybe a hundred yards by 20 yards, so it’s pretty feasible.

Dr. Remsen: So it’s feasible, well you have a better idea from your on the ground experience and over flights about the feasibility, but I like the idea of somehow just keeping those birds away, maybe with people, or noise makers, I don’t know what you’d use, but I think that’s the best you can do, just try and keep them away from there and hope they’ll go someplace else.  Certainly, the less time they spend there, the better. Period.  Even if it’s not a hundred percent effective it’s still a success.

Drew: I know that these oiled wildlife responders have hazing in their repertoire.

Dr. Remsen: They’ve obviously worked this out as much as anybody has, and if they’ve got protocols for this sort of thing, that’s where I would put my resources, to keep those Piping Plovers away from those kinds of beaches.

Drew: Do you think that deepwater drilling has any place in Louisiana? Obviously, the economy and the people seem to really think that it’s absolutely necessary.

Dr. Remsen: Well, (sighs) personally, if you really want to step back, I’m opposed to the use of fossil fuels period.  I mean I think all oil, I mean it’s all harmful, all of it.  Every single bit of it, whether it’s deepwater or in shore, everything about it sucks as far as I’m concerned, but as long as we’re not willing to bite the bullet, we’re the ones that are forcing deepwater drilling.  We’re the one’s that are responsible for the Deepwater Horizon thing because we’re willing to pay, no matter what for their products.

As far as, if I were emperor would I allow deepwater drilling after this? If it means degradation of the environment in the long term, no.  What about the fishermen? What about the shrimpers, and so on?  Who would I rather support?  If it comes to choosing people, I’ll take the Oystermen over the offshore oil industry any day.

Drew: Only two shrimpers went out from Grand Isle on opening day, and the media is saying that it’s because they don’t think there’s a market for Gulf shrimp, but everyone I’ve talked to, and the Houma Courier did an article on it, it’s because they wouldn’t feed it to their families, so they won’t bring it to market to feed to other people.

Dr. Remsen: Good for them.

Drew: I’m at a point where I just don’t understand where the motivation is for these corporate executives and corporate mandates that just serve to make more money at the planet’s expense? It’s not like in the end you can say that you won.  What could the possible motivation be?

Dr. Remsen: Well, if you’re an oil executive you can never have enough country club memberships to be satisfied.  That’s what we’re dealing with as far as I’m concerned.  Those people have unlimited greed.  It’s competition.  Who can have the most Mercedes.  I don’t know, that’s the new kings and queens of this plan.  I call it the “CEO-ocracy”. It’s the form of government we have.  I don’t know what’s going to happen. 

In some ways, I’m kind of glad that it happened, because it will open a lot of people’s eyes to the power of big oil.

The juxtaposition of all that media stuff that the oil is gone with photographs of the oil that’s still there.  The free press is our only hope, and people don’t like being deceived.  Those are the two ingredients that I think can work to counteract the “CEO-ocracy”.  The free press working to expose deceit and cover up because people hate that stuff.  They don’t like being lied to.  It’s a fundamental human thing.

Addendum to Part I: An Interview with LSU Ornithologist Dr. James Van Remsen About the Gulf Oil Disaster

E.J. Raynor sent me this list of research that has and is being done on waterbirds on the barrier islands of Louisiana.  E.J. conducted the first quantitative assessment of Louisiana barrier island waterbird use in the state's history for a Masters Degree at Nicholls State University, and has provided some details that were missing from the interview.

1) Dr. Aaron Pierce, E.J.'s advisor, is continuing research on waterbirds of the Isles Dernieres Barrier Islands Refuge  (IDBIR) in Terrebonne Parish with new graduate students.

2) Dr. Paul Leberg at University of Louisiana-Lafayette has a Ph.D. student, Scott Walter, that has been studying the Brown Pelicans on the IDBIR for four years.

3) CecIlia Leumas conducted her Masters research on Trinity Island with nest success of Least Terns and attempting to attract Skimmers and Royal Terns to nest on Trinity with decoys

4) E.J. was not Cecilia's technician but studied the seabird demography, productivity, habitat requirements, and mammalian predator activity on all the IDBIR: Wine, Trinity, Whiskey, and Raccoon Islands.

5) Aerial Surveys have been conducted see:

Michot, T.C., C.W. Jeske, J.C. Mazourek, W.G. Vermillion, and R.S. Kemmerer. 2003.  Atlas and census of wading bird and seabird nesting colonies in south Louisiana, 2001. Report No. 32. Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program. Thibodaux, Louisiana.

and references therein...

Part I: An Interview with LSU Ornithologist Dr. James Van Remsen About the Gulf Oil Disaster

LSU has always been a major center for American Ornithology, and has captured the imagination of the birding community with color and intrigue.  We often associate LSU with tales of discovery and hardship in remote South American mountains where LSU researchers have worked endlessly to decipher the natural history and taxonomic relationships of birds and bird communities in the exotic lands of the tropics.  Dr. James Van Remsen currently carries this ornithological torch.  In this interview, Drew Wheelan and Dr. James Van Remsen, professor at LSU's department of Biological Sciences and Curator of Birds in the Museum of Natural Sciences talk candidly about the BP oil disaster and its effects on birds in the Gulf, and LSU's role in studying the catastrophe.

Drew: How long have you been at LSU?

Dr. Remsen: 32 years.  I think this is my 33^rd I don’t know if this is my 32^nd or 33^rd I lose track

Drew: You’ve been here for 32 years, you’ve obviously seen some smaller oil spills, has LSU ever taken any sort of lead role in research or monitoring birds before?

Dr. Remsen: Not to my knowledge. Not Birds.   There are a lot of people that have research programs that have studied the effects of contaminates on ecoysystems, including oil on salt marsh systems, but not directly with birds. LSU is pretty well positioned here to study this.  There’s a big group of people here that study marine organisms from phytoplankton to birds. 

Drew: Historically you haven’t done anything with birds here, related to spills?

Dr. Remsen: Well, we haven’t really ever had anything like this happen before. You know, there’s always a little bit.  The studies have been from some well that leaks in the marsh, but there hasn’t ever been anything like this, anything that would have made somebody's news before, to my knowledge.

Drew: Your programs have always been geared toward the tropics.  Seeing this kind of spill in your backyard, does this make you want to change focus at all, and change the direction of study more toward a local focus?

 

Dr. Remsen: Well, for me there’s no chance that I would redirect my studies. It’s just not what I like to do. I do what I like to do, it’s one of the reasons why I am an academic.  That kind of research would be considered applied research, not basic research, and it’s really the perview of our renewable resources people, they’re the ones that would study something like that from a research point of view, not us.  We have a specimen based research program that’s based largely in South America, and to some degree Indonesia, well the East Indies and Borneo, so this is a huge leap. Now, the only reason that we are involved is that Steve Cardiff, Donna Dittman and myself are working on a book of the birds of Louisiana, and we’ve been working on this project for a long time.  So this has become the center of Louisiana bird records and Louisiana Ornithology, so even though our primary research is not in Louisiana, on the other hand, as ornithologists we’re probably more involved in the State’s ornithological scene than ornithologists in most other states.  We’ve got strong ties to the Louisana Birding community.  We’ve got the LA Bird Resource Center, and so on, but that’s more of a secondary, what do you call, a community interaction dimension of our program than a research interaction per say. 

When I think of research, it’s thinking of questions and answering questions.  It’s why. It’s detective work, and the stuff I do in LA, I mean there’s always detective work on what is the real status of species XYand Z and all that kind of thing, but I think it’s more in terms of compliation of information and provoking others to find out the details, so oil and gulf coast is brand new for us.  Steve and Donna, they’re the ones that are doing all of the field work, and they’ve had a long term interest in Gulf Coast and Louisiana Shorebirds and Pelagics and that sort of thing.

Drew: I know Donna Dittman was in communication early on about developing some sort of pelagic bird monitoring program associated with the spill, but it really seems like wildlife managers that have been involved in the response haven't really tapped into the local pool of experts available to them here

Dr. Remsen: I don’t really blame them.  I mean, if you were to google Gulf Coast Bird Research, you wouldn’t find our names.  We haven’t published papers on Gulf Coast shorebirds and pelagics, or anything like that, so it’s sort of here say, word of mouth sort of thing, so I don’t blame them at all.

Drew: I guess I’m thinking in terms of EJ Raynor, having studied all of the Barrier Island Tern colonies, and people like that.  I would just think that maybe there would be some communication with these scientists.

Dr. Remsen: Well, there’s also a student in Wildlife and Fisheries program named Cecilia Leumes, and EJ Raynor worked for her, at least I think he did.  She studies the colonies on Isles Deneirs, and I haven’t heard anything of or about her during this whole thing. 

Drew: Before this, would she have had a field season out there?

Dr. Remsen: I think she may be done with her field work, but I’m not sure.   She’s a student of Frank Rower’s, and wildlife and fisheries, but even in that program, there’s no one working on Gulf Coast Birds. I guess the sort of sad thing is that in Louisiana, or elsewhere, there’s nobody doing any studies of Gulf Coast breeding bird populations, which are huge. I mean, this is a fantastic place for birds.  The numbers of birds along the Gulf Coast is unparalleled.

Drew: That’s why I was so surprised when I got here, and met Steve and Donna, and they said there’s basically no baseline data to go off of.

Dr. Remsen: I mean, we’ve got our winter bird, and summer bird atlas stuff, but that’s it.  Part of the problem is because of access.  You know, it’s not like you can just go out there.  You know, in order to study those birds on Isle Deniers, Cecilia had to build a little house out there.  Wildlife and fisheries people built her a little camp, I mean that’s how it had to work.  Access is a real impedement here.

Drew: So, when this spill first happened, what were your biggest concerns?

Dr. Remsen: Well, my biggest concern was not direct mortality to the birds, because  I am a believer in population resiliency.  You know, unless you wipe them out completely, they’re going to come back.  Some more slowly than others, and especially in seabirds. Sea bird biology, Gulf Coast breeding biology in general is geared toward catastrophe.  You know entire breeding seasons can be wiped out by hurricanes, or one Raccoon getting on an island.  It’s a precarious event.  And in fact, it is in seabirds in general.  They live a long time, so it’s the breeding adults that are important for the population, not the actual offspring of any particular year.  Their demography sort of relies on occasional successful breeding, rather than constant output or anything like that.  You know the Brown Pelican story here in LA, can tell you how fast these things can bounce back.  Brown Pelicans were extirpated from LA, and now there are thousands and thousands breeding here.

Drew: There must be 20,000 here in the state.

Dr. Remsen: I know, it’s amazing, it goes from zero to 20,000, I mean that’s the sad thing is that we don’t really know what the number is.  We’re trying to fix that right now, with ABA money.  We’re trying to scramble right now, we never thought there was a problem before.  You know hindsight is 20/20. 

My immediated concern was ecosystem destruction.  Like a lot of people, I was more worried about waves of sludge continuing to wash into the marshes and killing the marshes, and then that accelerating coastal erosion.  That was my big concern. Not the birds per se, but the whole marsh ecosystem, being jeopardized, well, you know more about this than I do.  The wave action.  It’s unbelievable how important the marsh vegetation is for the integrity of the coastline, that was my big concern, an immediated acceleration of loss of those coastal communities, and that doesn’t seem to be the case, and for that I’m tremendously relieved.

Drew: Grand terre has lost 20 feet of beach in just the past two months on the eastern tip of the island.

Dr. Remsen: Now, I’ve heard this second hand, maybe you can confirm it, but even in places where the vegetation has been destroyed, there’s green stuff sprouting out already?

Drew: I have seen that, even some of the Mangroves that lost their leaves initially are growing new leaves in places.

Dr. Remsen: Again, the whole ecosystem is disturbance adapted.  Not oil disturbance, but perturbation is an essential component of this Gulf Coast system.  If you look at it over centuries, just in terms of hurricanes alone, you’ve got a dynamic ecosystem that has a lot of resiliency, so now, I think that worry has subsided a little. At first I thought this was going to be an incredible environmental catastrophe. Now, I’m much more relaxed about it.  My lingering concern is ecosystem perturbation at the molecular level almost, you know from contaminants destroying the phytoplankton, or zooplankton, or benthic organisms, you know something like that, and it’s stuff that I don’t know anything about, so it’s just this vague fear, that especially the chemicals from the dispersants is going to have some impact.  I think that’s the main danger now.  You know, some of the stuff that you’ve posted and others have posted about the Army Corps of Engineers and clean up workers and beach barriers.  That stuff may have done more immediate damage than the actual oil did, that might be exaggerating, but maybe…  But even there, you know one major storm on Elmer’s Island or even on Grand Isle would wipe them all out. What it represents is just these futile humans trying to hold back the tides, literally, I mean what a waste of time and energy, but even that, I suspect, and maybe I’m just a naïve optimist, but I suspect that two years from now you won’t see a trace of it.

A major winter storm can really rearrange those beaches. 

I want to make sure that you know, as far as the birds, the populations of birds, nothing makes me madder than seeing some bird covered in oil washed up on the beach, or a crab, some poor crab.  It just really gets me.  I want to make clear that at least at the gut level that really gets me.

Dispersed Oil Found in the Gulf in Navarre, Florida. How Predictable.

Last week I had the opportunity to accompany Coastal Geologist Rip Kirby from the University of Southern Florida on a search mission.  The quarry was oil, and Rip was confident that we would find it.  Spurred on by the latest report from the Coast Guard that there was very little oil off of the Gulf Coast, where they found only two of 5,000 samples to contain oil, Rip was determined to test a hypothesis.  Rip tells me that actually only 10 samples were taken in 5,000 square feet, but the information from the above report says otherwise.  I think that the news report likely got its numbers mixed up when writing the story. The Coast Guard tests were done in random locations, but just like the oil as it hits the shore, this near neutrally buoyant dispersed oil settles in very predictable locations.  Rip hypothesizes that this oil is gathering in depressions along the ocean floor, and we set out to test that theory.

As we exited the Destin harbor we came across an area of orange, dispersed oil floating on the surface of the water.  I was taken aback as I hadn't seen that type of oil in almost a month, and to see it so far to the East was a little baffling.  In fact, that oil has come ashore this weekend in Southern Louisiana confirming a report from a friend that had been briefed by Unified Command about a  1 mile long by 100 foot wide swath of oil just off of the Louisiana coast last Thursday night.  This oil has now come to rest on 16 miles of shoreline in Plaquemines Parish, and in Barataria Bay, as there are virtually no skimmers left in the water to combat this oil.  

Back to Florida.  We ran a transect in 40 feet of water to the west out of Destin looking for underwater gullies where we would look for the oil.  In our first transect we didn't find any obvious depressions, but there was a small concave area that was worth a free dive.  This first site was not quite what we were looking for in terms of contour, and appeared to be clean.
Geologist, Rip Kirby dives in to check out the bottom.   

We then started our North/South transects, and marked a waypoint at the first depression that we hit.  We continued to cruise a little bit to see if we might find something better but returned to the first location that looked good on the sonar.  The divers geared up, and I actually went for a swim, maybe not the smartest thing I've done as more science is gathered about the toxicity of the dispersants to humans.

The plan was for the divers to move along in a row, down the depression looking for oil.  They had a buoy with them that would show their position so we could pick them up after the 40 minute dive.  We didn't have to go anywhere, as the buoy didn't move.  As soon as they hit the bottom they saw that it was much darker than was normal, and noticed that all of the Sand Dollars were a dark blackish brown.  When they resurfaced Rip described an area devoid of life, with shells of dead crustaceans along the bottom.  Besides the one Remora that came to check the divers out, no other fish were seen on the dive, and yes of course, the darker substrate was oil.  By oil we mean a Corexit/oil mixture.
Rip with his sample jars at the site of the second dive. 

The samples are in the lab, but Rip has figured out a way of identifying the dispersants using UV light.  Both forms of Corexit fluoresce in this type of light, and all of the samples showed both forms of dispersant, and smelled of petroleum.  A sample was also taken of the water itself, and when it settled out, a centimeter thick layer of Corexit 9500 settled out in the bottom of the jar.
Student Diver, Kyle Saleeby holds up one of the  discolored Sand Dollars for inspection.

As we were preparing to head back to port we noticed a Greater Shearwater sitting on the water.  It didn't fly and was very close, in fact, it was swimming toward us.  One attempt to rescue the bird was made, in which it flew weakly in a labored manner, and it was decided that we were not equipped to rescue the bird in our large boats without any nets.  The bird like most birds seen these days did not exhibit any obvious sign of oiling, but it did have severely worn flight feathers.  It was molting symmetrically, and the older yet to be molted secondaries, primaries and rectrices were worn straight to the shaft.  I have never seen this type of feather wear in a Greater Shearwater before, and it is exactly what we are witnessing in many of the Gulls, Terns and Pelicans along the Gulf Coast.  The theory is that as the birds preen their feathers with fervor to try and remove oil they are doing a lot of damaged to their feathers.
The Greater Shearwater that we found, and had to leave behind. 

When we finally got back to the hotel, Rip used his light on a couple of samples I had in my truck, and ion the process showed that everything I have in the back of my truck is contaminated with dispersants.
This boot was last worn on July 23rd on Grand Terre Island.  The Orange is Coerexit 9500, and the magenta is the more toxic 9527.  Both have not broken down in two months, as well as the oil that remains on the shoes.