Flood rescues in Australia, Sri Lanka, Africa driven by La Niña

March 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2011:
Climate change has more than doubled the
risk of flooding since 1950, two new studies
agreed in the February 16, 2011 edition of
Nature.
“For years scientists have said that
global warming would likely cause extremes in
temperatures and rainfall. But this is the first
time researchers have been able to point to a
demonstrable cause-and-effect,” assessed
Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press writer
Seth Borenstein.

BOOKS: Orphans of Katrina

October 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)

Orphans of Katrina
by Karen O’Toole
Give A Dog A Bone Press
(P.O. Box 5665, Carefree, AZ 85377), 2010. 244 pages, paperback. $16.96.

On August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina beat up New Orleans and
the Gulf Coast, sending frightened residents fleeing for safety.
Hurricane Rita followed. Tens of thousands of dogs, cats and other
animals were left behind, mostly by people who were at work and
unable to get back home when Katrina hit, or expected to be away for
just hours or days, not months or forever.

Volcano taxes Indonesian rescuers

October 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)
YOGYAKARTA–“Animal conditions are really bad and sad,”
e-mailed Rosek Nurashid of ProFauna on October 31, 2010 from the
shadows of Mount Merapi, Indonesia, hours before it erupted for the
third of five times in a week. Each new blast made the already
catastrophic situation worse.
“Many cows are hungry and dying,” Nurashid wrote. “ProFauna
is trying to provide food and medicine. It’s hard to find grass,
because almost all the grass around Merapi is covered by dust, so
our team is looking for the grass from other regions.”

Pakistan flood recedes but animal welfare crisis is still underway

October 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)

KARACHI–Floods that swamped more than a fifth of Pakistan
receded in October 2010, but the resultant animal welfare crisis may
have just begun.
“According to the Department of Livestock,” e-mailed
Pakistan Animal Welfare Society founder Mahera Omar, “1.2 million
mammals and six million poultry died in the floods. At least two
million hectares of cultivatable land were damaged. If the planting
seasons are missed, both livestock and people will continue to
suffer for a long time.”

What do past spills predict for Deepwater Horizon impact?

June 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

The Deepwater Horizon oil discharge, after 62 days, was
believed by the U.S. Coast Guard to have reached a volume of as much
as 156 million gallons–making it the second worst oil disaster in
history, 15 times larger than the 1989 Exxon-Valdez oil spill in
Prince William Sound, Alaska. The Deep-water Horizon spill is
expected to reach 250 million gallons by the time BP completes
drilling four pressure relief wells in August 2010 and finally caps
the undersea gusher.
The warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Carribean Sea
receive more than four times as much sunlight per year than the
Prince William Sound, however, and that translates into
exponentially greater activity by wind, waves, and microorganisms
to mitigate the effects of oil spills.

Reckoning the wildlife losses

June 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

Who is compiling the Deepwater Horizon body count?
“Within each of the animal rescue stations set up along the
Gulf Coast is a makeshift morgue for oiled and ill creatures that
didn’t make it,” reported Katy Reckdahl of the New Orleans
Times-Picayune. “Pathologists and laboratory staff are carefully
cataloging each dead creature as part of larger criminal, civil and
scientific inquiries into how the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has
affected animals and their habitats.
“The operations cannot be photographed or observed by
outsiders,” Reckdahl said, “because they are part of a massive body
of evidence outlining the harm that the spill has caused wildlife,
in violation of federal laws such as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act,
Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act.”
Estimates that the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill killed 250,000
sea birds and 2,800 sea otters were developed from collecting and
evaluating the remains of more than 35,000 birds and 1,000 sea
otters. Exxon eventually agreed to pay $100 million as criminal
restitution for harm to wildlife, plus $900 million over 10 years in
settlement of damage suits.

Seabird rescues revive debate over whether oiling victims should be cleaned

June 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

GRAND ISLE–The disaster for pelicans predicted ever since
the Deepwater Horizon burned and began leaking oil on April 20, 2010
hit in full force when large amounts of oil at last reached the
coastal islands of Louisiana six weeks later.
Queen Bess Island, near Grand Isle, “is the worst-hit area
in the state in terms of wildlife,” state biologist Michael Carloss
told Allen Johnson of Agence France-Presse on June 5.
The Queen Bess Island pelican rookery is home to
thousands of birds, many of them oiled, but too lightly to permit
safe capture, Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries
ornithologist Michael Seymour told Mira Oberman of Agence
France-Presse.

The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill meets the Gulf hypoxic dead zone

June 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:
NEW ORLEANS–Sixty-three days after the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill started on April 20, the documented toll on wildlife included
997 dead birds, only 265 of them oiled; 749 oiled live birds; 400
dead sea turtles, only eight of them oiled; 128 live sea turtles,
84 of them oiled; and 51 mammals, 47 of them dead, including 38
dolphins, but only four of them oiled.
“These are the consolidated numbers of collected fish and
wildlife reported to the Unified Area Command from the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration,
incident area commands, rehabilitation centers, and other
authorized sources operating within the Deepwater Horizon/BP incident
impact area,” prefaced the online report, updated daily at
<www.ibrrc.org/gulf-oil-spill-birds-treated-numbers-2010.html>.

BP burns pledge to wildlife fund, too

June 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:
NEW YORK CITY–Less than 24 hours before British Petroleum
began burning oil recovered from the Deepwater Horizon leakage
capture pipe at sea, BP president Tony Hayward announced that BP had
created a wildlife fund that would receive any profits made from
selling the recovered oil.
“BP is committed to protecting the ecosystems and wildlife on
the Gulf Coast. We believe these funds will have a significant
positive impact on the environment,” Hayward told New York Daily
News staff writer Meena Hartenstein on June 8, 2010.

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