Day 33 Heavy Oil and Carnage to Grand Terre Island

Yesterday I accompanied LSU researcher and coordinator of the LSU Bird Resource Center, Richard Gibbons to Isle Grand Terre to conduct a survey of the birds there.  This island is .38 miles east of the heavily populated Grand Isle.  We kayaked across in some pretty dangerous waters, due to the tide, wind, and heavy boat traffic but it was well worth it to see what we saw.  The LSU Bird Resource Center is the only entity in the area that has been collecting baseline population data in the Gulf Coast area, so they have taken up the task of continuing their surveys to study the effects of this spill on the bird populations here.

We walked the entire, nearly 3 mile island, and were immediately faced with large amounts of heavy, thick oil on the beach, and several dead fish.  In fact there wasn't a section of beach on the Gulf side that wasn't oiled, and in places the oil was 15 yards or more wide and four inches thick!  As the tide receded, we could see more oil on the bottom of the ocean, slowly working its way toward shore.
 Northern Gannet, Morus bassanus

We saw a lot of dead organisms.  Many fish littered the beach, and what struck us was that they all seemed to be bottom dwelling fish like Catfish, Black Drum and Redfish. Most of the non Catfish were well over ten pounds, some as long as three feet.  We also found a dead Bottlenose Dolphin, but I think that its cause of death was not this latest oil that has come ashore.  It had been dead for at least a week, and was too high up the beach for the recent tides to have carried it there, but if the oil continues to flow into Barataria Bay as it is, we will be seeing more of this scene in the very near future.  The Oiled Wildlife Care Network reports that they have recovered 18 dead dolphins so far. 

We also found our first sea turtle. OWCN reports that they have recovered 173 dead turtles associated with the spill.  This endangered Kemp's Ridley, (formerly identified as a Hawksbill, thank you University of Florida) was about 16-18 inches in total length, the first one I have ever seen.
We counted approximately 500 birds, many roosting together on the east end of the island.  Of the 500, we counted 30 oiled birds, some severely.  That's 6 percent of the population, just in the first few days of the spill reaching the shores here.  We were on this island for about 5 hours and did not see one person working on cleanup, or surveying, in fact we saw no one.  These fish are the perfect bait to draw in the gulls, and you can see this catfish has had its belly eaten out already.
The situation is deteriorating rapidly, and the response effort does not seem to be tracking the increasing severity on the ground.  In fact, the contractors doing all of the bird rescue were ordered to stop working yesterday as BP's command central said they do not have a contract.  On day 33 of the spill the scope of work and contracts are still not finalized.  The three rescue and recovery workers on Grand Isle are at a stand still.  Meanwhile, the oil continues to pile up, as do the numbers of oiled birds.  

The bird rescue process is difficult, and most of these birds are still flighted making it nearly impossible to capture them.  It is a waiting game until the birds get so sick, fatigued or malnourished that one can capture them.  They have no methods other than salmon dip nets to catch these birds, and in this area I have not scene any federal Fish and Wildlife officials helping them in this process.  To compound the matter, many of the oiled, colonially nesting birds such as the Pelicans, Herons, Gulls and Terns return to their breeding islands so a rescue risks disturbing the entire colony to save an oiled bird.  It is a very difficult decision to leave a bird, but getting on the island might cause more mortality than you would save. It is a very difficult issue now, and the timing of this oil washing ashore couldn't be worse, as we are in the height of breeding for most of these species.

I am hearing reports that the organizational structure of the response may be changing, making it easier for volunteers to help, though I have not been able to substantiate that fact.  Call 1-866-448-5816 for volunteer information.

 

Comments

['monster]

Great video about why the booming isn't working- strong language inappropriate for children. What are you seeing in terms of attempts to stop the oil?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx8kMXufu3w&feature=player_embedded

[Angela]

Thanks for the daily on-the-ground reports Drew; I'm not seeing any other decent source of wildlife info. I've always thought seeing a sea turtle would be an amazingly special experience. How sad to see a dead one.

[Grace]

The pictures are a lot more graphic than the ones shown on TV, with the lovely marina in the background.

[drew wheelan]

Every single booming effort I have seen has failed. That video is amazing, and I'm glad you put it up here, not sure that I could have. The booming has failed because of inattention and poor placement. I could have done a better job in nearly every case. Actually, I take that back, After the half mile of poorly placed booming failed in Caminada Pass, the U.S. Navy set up a decent boom that worked very well, but the effort to then remove said oil from the water was very minimal at best. In that same area there is 3/4 of a mile of booming that was washed up by the new moon high tide about 4 days before the oil hit, and so the absorbent boom to this day remains about ten feet above where any oil has been. Maybe they are just waiting for the full moon to move the oil up??!!

[David Fahrenthold]

Drew--Dave Fahrenthold here from the Washington Post. Can you email me at fahrenthold@washpost.com to talk about this trip?

[Sharon]

I'll be following your blog from now on. I sure wish there were some good news.

[Courtney]

Thanks for your honest reporting on the wildlife Drew!
As hard as it is to read I am glad someone I trust is there to give us the real scoop.

[Seb Svendsen]

It is too bad that there are oil spills but we do need the oil.