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.

BP partnered with The Nature Conservancy & other big green groups

June 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:
WASHINGTON D.C.–“The Nature Conservancy lists BP as one of
its business partners,” observed Washington Post staff writer Joe
Stephens on May 23, 2010. “The organization also has given BP a
seat on its International Leadership Council and has accepted nearly
$10 million in cash and land contributions from BP and affiliated
corporations over the years.
“The Conservancy,” wrote Stephens, “already
scrambling to shield oyster beds in the region from the spill, now
faces a potential backlash as its supporters learn that the giant oil
company and the world’s largest environmental organization long ago
forged a relationship that has lent BP an Earth-friendly image.
Until recently, the Conservancy and other environmental groups worked
alongside BP in a coalition that lobbied Congress on climate change
issues. And an employee of BP Exploration serves as an unpaid
Conservancy trustee in Alaska.”

Defective search & seizure warrants typically keep cases from going to trial

June 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

Cases involving defective warrants, or none, are usually
dismissed before actually going to trial. The most commonly cited
error is that the investigators overstep legal limits in seeking
probable cause to obtain warrants.
For example, Justice Robin Clute of Ravalli County, Montana
on June 8, 2010 dismissed three counts of cruelty filed in 2008
against Paula Fisher, of Victor, Montana, after Ravalli County
sheriff’s deputies impounded 10 horses, 17 goats, and two cats from
her property. All but three of the horses were later returned to
Fisher, said Perry Backus of the Ravalli Republic. In the Fisher
case, the deputies obtained a search warrant, but only after
entering her property to inspect the animals more closely, having
seen them first from a road. The deputies passed a “No trespassing”
sign.

Irish Supreme Court in 2009 rejected attempt to use a “no warrant” defense

June 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

DUBLIN–Globally, defenses based on alleged warrantless
search and seizure are usually considered a quirk of U.S. law, since
the U.S. Fourth Amendment protection against warrantless entry is
uniquely strong. The Irish Supreme Court on May 1, 2009 rejected a
rare non-U.S. attempt to use lack of a warrant as a defense.
Barrister and customs officer Donba Sfar, of St.
Bronagh’s, Lisdoo, Dundalk, contended that Irish SPCA inspector
Paul Mellon and the Louth SPCA improperly seized 17 dogs from the
yard and outbuildings of a house she owned in Oaklawns, Dundalk, in
December 1998. The dogs were allegedly starving and had cannibalized
another dog.
Sfar conducted her own defense and appeals. The Irish
Supreme Court ruled that while her home was on the Oaklawns property,
the places from which the dogs were seized were not part of her
actual dwelling, and were therefore not subject to a warrant
requirement.
U.S. law holds that all properties are subject to warrant
requirements, except under “exigent circumstances.”

SHARK flying videocam

June 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:
SHARK, a longtime pioneer of the use of both video and
aviation to investigate and expose animal abuse, on June 15, 2010
unveiled “Angels for the Animals,” a squadron of remote-controlled
helicopters in development for about six months, funded by Bob
Barker, longtime host of The Price Is Right and other television
game shows.
“Because of the cowardly nature of animal abusers, cruelty
often occurs unseen on private property or otherwise away from public
access. The air, however, is open to the public, with certain
restrictions,” said SHARK founder Steve Hindi. “Armed with high
definition video and still cameras, the Angels will expose animal
abuse as never before. Abusers will no longer be able to hide away
in woods or behind fences. Our cameras will catch them.”

Baghdad deploys gunmen to kill dogs

June 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:
BAGHDAD–More than 42,000 of the estimated 1.25 million
stray dogs roaming Baghdad were shot in the 60 days preceding June
11, 2010 according to the London Daily Mail foreign service.
The pace of dog-shooting had apparently increased sixfold
since Sam Dagher of the The New York Times reported in March 2010
that about 10,000 dogs had been shot since December. The shooting,
Dagher said, augmented “a program begun late last year in which the
national Ministry of Agriculture’s veterinary services teamed up with
the municipality, the police, and even the army in some of the
tougher neighborhoods. Mostly the dogs are killed with rotten raw
meat laced with strychnine.” Dagher described a poisoning crew
“being harassed a bit over whether dogs are really Iraq’s biggest
worry.”

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>.

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