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.

Burning the oil spill evidence

June 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

NEW ORLEANS–Rumors flew for weeks that British Petroleum
clean-up crews were secretly incinerating the remains of wildlife
oiled by the April 20, 2010 wreck of the Deepwater Horizon drilling
rig. Often obstructed by BP personnel, despite an order from U.S.
Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen that media were to be allowed access
to all areas normally open to the public, reporters wondered just
what they were not being allowed to see–especially since many gained
access to heavily oiled habitat despite the BP interference.
But some of the first claims that oiled remains were being
burned on beaches turned out to have been recycled from the aftermath
of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. A similar rumor traced to Salt
Lake City, where a 500-barrel spill into Red Butte Creek and the
Jordan River on June 11 oiled about 280 ducks and geese. About 10
birds were killed. The Hogle Zoo saved the rest.

Gulf oil spill rescuers prepare & wait

May 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2010:
NEW ORLEANS–Almost a month after the British Petroleum
drilling platform Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20, 2010 in
the Gulf of Mexico, 45 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana,
rescuers from Texas to Florida were still awaiting an anticipated
influx of animals from a disaster projected by many experts as
perhaps the worst-ever oil spill for wildlife.
“I think we ruined every child’s summer in New Orleans,
because we bought all the kiddie pools,” Louisiana state marine
mammal and sea turtle stranding coordinator Michelle Kelley told
Associated Press writer Janet McConnaughey.

ACRES wins wildlife center pollution case

April 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2010:

SINGAPORE–The Animal Concerns Research and Education Society
on March 24, 2010 won an order from Singapore High Court Justice Kan
Ting Chiu that ANA Contractor Ltd. must pay damages for building most
of the ACRES wildlife rehabilitation center on a footing of woodchips
contaminated with toxic materials believed to be residue from
sandblasting.
ANA Ltd. subcontracted the job of filling and leveling the
site in Choa Chu Kang to another firm, Lok Sheng Enterprises.
“Shortly after the land was filled, the area was plagued by a foul
stench and brackish water started to seep through the surface,”
recounted K.C. Vijayan of Straits Times. Toxic leachate also
polluted the nearby Kranji Reservoir, and appeared to menace a
commercial fish farm.

U.N. members agree to study livestock role in global warming

January 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

COPENHAGEN–A draft agreement creating an international
working group under United Nations auspices to reduce global warming
emissions from agriculture may become a turning point in the
international struggle to reduce and mitigate climate change.
Though called “greenhouse gases,” because they trap heat,
the emissions at issue are produced chiefly by livestock, by the use
of fossil fuels in raising fodder for livestock, and by clearing
woodlands for grazing and fodder cultivation.
“Current agricultural production is estimated to contribute
30% of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than double that of its
nearest rival, transport, at 13.5%,” explained Ed Hamer, reporting
for The Ecologist.

Editorial: Learning from the Glendale Creek beaver disaster

May 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2009:

ANIMAL PEOPLE is headquartered at the top of a steep hill
rising above Glendale Creek. Formed from 5,000 to 9,000 years ago by
runoff from a melting glacier, Glendale Creek cut a deep ravine
through which it flows for about three miles before draining into
Puget Sound at the 10-house village of Glendale.
Glendale a century ago was the chief link between South
Whidbey Island and the mainland. Steam-powered ferries stopped
there. The first car dealership on the island perched precariously
beside Glendale Creek. A narrow gauge railway, built in 1900, ran
from the water’s edge at low tide into the interior of the island.
Eventually about 10 miles long, it hauled huge cedar logs down to
the Sound, where they were floated off of flat cars and tied into
rafts to be tugged to Seattle.
The logging predictably created soil erosion. Loss of
topsoil led to loss of ground covering vegetation and flash floods,
but the loggers, the farmers who followed them to work the land,
and the hunters and fishers who came from the mainland for holidays
of recreational mayhem were all preoccupied with killing most of the
wildlife who survived the tree-cutting.

Editorial feature: Animal welfare & conservation in conflict

September 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2008:

While in Indonesia for the August 2008
Asia for Animals conference, the fifth in a
series co-sponsored by ANIMAL PEOPLE since 2001,
ANIMAL PEOPLE president Kim Bartlett joined
several other conference attendees in a visit to
the International Animal Rescue facilities in
West Java, near Bogor, two hours by car south
of Jakarta.
The visit provided an unexpectedly stark
illustration of some of the sharpest edges and
conflicts in the three-cornered relationship
among animal welfare, wildlife species
conservation, and habitat protection.

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