Animal Autopsies in Gulf Yield a Mystery

Animal Autopsies in Gulf Yield a Mystery

www.nytimes.com

Despite an obvious suspect, oil, the answer is far from clear. The vast majority of the dead animals that have been found — 1,866 birds, 463 turtles, 59 dolphins and one sperm whale — show no visible signs of oil contamination. Much of the evidence in the turtle cases points, in fact, to shrimping or other commercial fishing, but other suspects include oil fumes, oiled food, the dispersants used to break up the oil or even disease.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Far less is known about the effects of dispersants, either by themselves or mixed with oil, though almost two million gallons of the chemicals have been used in the BP spill.

Studies show that dispersants, which break down oil into tiny droplets and can also break down cell membranes, make oil more toxic for some animals, like baby birds. And the solvents they contain can break down red blood cells, causing hemorrhaging. At least one fresh dolphin carcass found in the Gulf was bleeding from the mouth and blowhole, according to Lori Deangelis, a dolphin tour operator in Perdido Bay.

Is this even a surprise to anyone? It's a shame that it takes the deaths of so many animals for people to realize what we've been talking about on ATS for so long.

www.nytimes.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

yes!

corexit is likely the culprit, imo.
we wouldn't have known how bad it is if this hadn't happened.

and supposedly they've been using it consistently all along, although not in such large amounts.

maybe that's part of the reason that the sea is not as full of life as it used to be.
that, and commercial fishing.

but corexit is totally unnatural, unnecessary, and cruel!

From the article, what I read strongly suggests that the people who livings supposedly depend on the integrity of the ocean life, when it comes down to it, do not really care any more about it than BP does. Perhaps they deserve to lose it for only seeing it as something to be used up for money.

I think most organisms will pass oil pretty quickly.

The question is what toxins where in the oil that the organism tried to convert into energy.

Obviously the dispersant is killing everything it touches. Its purpose is to breakdown a product that exists because it cannot be broken down any further naturally. Oil is the sludge that pools at the bottom of your chemistry experiments. Nature used heat to separate the essence and purify the product until all that is left is unusable black matter that we call oil.

In addition to the chemical used, which destroys the building blocks of life, radiation being released is a suspect, and the middle east is already inundated with depleted uranium, but so is the world. Its as if they have been waging nuclear aware against humans for decades. The results to this planet are enormous.

[edit on 16-7-2010 by Unity_99]