Weekend Edition: More Dead Than Meets the Eye

credit: Lori DeAngelis, Arnica Bay, AL

More: Government handling of dolphin deaths are preventing a full scientific investigation of the cause complains Moby Solangi, director of the Marine Mammal Studies Institute in Mississippi. The Institute is not able to conduct necropsies on dolphins because the US Justice Department is apparently using the evidence collected from dolphin necropsies in its criminal case investigation of British Petroleum. According to NOAA there have been 153 dolphin deaths this year, 65 of which were stillborn or aborted calves. Another scientist in Mississippi said "political ramifications" are interfering in a scientific investigation of the cause of a officially declared spike in dolphin mortality in the Gulf of Mexico. NOAA confirmed that two dolphins stranded at low tide in Lousiana were returned to deep water by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife. Researchers say stranded dolphins should be rescued and examined before being returned to the water. Since mid-March about 120 dead sea turtles have also been found. The cause of those deaths has yet to be announced, but a New York Times video suggests the turtles drowned due to entanglement in fishing gear. The Gulf of Mexico is far from being a healthy body of water regardless of propaganda to the contrary or efforts to cover up the true extent of the damage done by a reckless international oil company putting profit above safety.

Update:{4.4.11}One year since the largest unintended oil spill in history, perpetrator British Petroleum has been given approval of its request to resume operations in the Gulf of Mexico on ten existing wells according to The Independent.  However Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has denied any such deal with BP.  The government did issue a deepwater permit to Royal Dutch Shell Oil last month.

{2.4.11} Dolphins are under great environmental stress in the Gulf of Mexico, as witnessed by the extraordinary number of dead calves washing ashore in Mississippi and Alabama. However, wildlife experts believe the actual death count may be much worse. In an article posted at Conservation Letters, the journal of the Conservation Biology Society, the number of dead cetaceans recovered through November, 2010 is 101. That is a relatively low number given the size of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The authors think, based on a statistical analysis of records of carcass detections, survival rates, and stranding, only 2% of cetacean deaths produce a carcass to be recovered. The authors conclude the actual number of dead dolphins and other marine mammals that are protected under federal law, could be 50 times the reported amount. The federal government is conducting necropsies of dolphin infants found dead. They are treating the information obtained from the examinations, much to the disgust of marine biologists, as if it were a criminal forensic investigation. The secrecy is not engendering trust, already at a low point, of the government's handling of the aftermath. Apparently, based on news reports, the Justice Department is considering a criminal manslaughter case against the corporations, British Petroleum and Transocean*, most responsible for the deaths of 11 platform workers. Federal attorneys should not overlook the deaths of hundreds of sentient sea dwellers when it comes to assessing liability for a massive crime against nature.

*Transocean executives received bonuses this year.  The CEO awarded himself $4.3 million in cash, stocks and options, and lauded his company's "best year in safety performance in the company's history"  This is what passes for accountability in the corporate world.  Transocean leased the Deepwater Horizon platform to BP and maintains it has no liability for the disaster.