It is not enough that over 2,000 square miles of oil can be seen from space, but even after two years of day-to-day efforts to contain the spill and minimize its effects on wildlife, indications are that some of the efforts may have failed. The clean-up is still ongoing, but oil doesn’t just spread on the surface of the water.

1. BP’s Gulf Oil Spill Apparent in other Regions of the U.S. through Animals
It is not enough that over 2,000 square miles of oil can be seen from space, but even after two years
of day-to-day efforts to contain the spill and minimize its effects on wildlife, indications are that
some of the efforts may have failed. The clean-up is still ongoing, but oil doesn’t just spread on the
surface of the water.
Marine life and mammals use the water just as much as humans do. Instead of spending their days
on the beach getting tan, however, they focus on procreation and feeding. Fishermen have already
reported mutations in shrimp and fish that affected not only their businesses, but can also cause
great health risks if those creatures were to be harvested and served on a plate. The pollution and
degradation to the marine life is clear, but what about mammals and birds?
Recently, pollutants have been found in the eggs of Minnesota birds that migrate to the Gulf. This
means that the next generation of birds, such as the American white pelican, could be deformed and
mutated no less than the eye-less shrimp. Nearly 80% of the birds had contaminants present on
them that were used in dispersing the oil in the gulf.
Very little is known on how the soon-to-hatch babies will look, much less react to this
contamination. To make matters worse, there is only enough money for the project to be funded for
the next three years of research. Due to the size of the spill and the hundreds of ecosystems that
have been destabilized by it, it will take many more years and generations of birds to test to make
certain the effects of the contaminants are not genetically inherent.
The oil in the water is too light to disintegrate, therefore it creates a thin film coating on the water’s
surface that prevents oxygen and water exchange. Toxins from the oil are absorbed by wildlife and
can be passed into the body by preening and by predators feeding on the contaminated animals. Sea
plants die and the marine creatures that rely on those sea plants for food will have to struggle for
survival. Any oil that the flesh or feathers of other creatures touch strips away the water resistant
coating on their bodies, weighing them down. Animals literally die from hypothermia as they
remain in the cold water for too long.
Sea turtles are affected in every stage of development if they so much as come across a small bit of
oil. Since they spend much of their adult life in the ocean, they can very easily swim into the slick.
Birds such as the endangered Brown pelican that lives on the Gulf’s coasts can either die from
hypothermia or their reproductive success will be slowed to the point where the species could just
become extinct. Fish, their eggs, and the larvae are the easiest to pick up contaminants because they
cannot avoid the water or its surface at any cost—the mutations become embedded in their genetic
buildup and get passed on to other creatures that eat them. Other mammals such as the bottle-nose
dolphin and sea lions could very well experience chemical irritation and burns in their organs and
develop internal bleeding to a degree where their numbers will decrease and they too will
potentially end up on the endangered species list.
It is well-known that big oil spills contribute to 5% of the marine oil pollution. BP cites it’s Health,
Safety, Security and Environment (HSSE) policy, claiming that their goal is to have “no accidents,
no harm to people and no damage to the environment”. Further explaining “The key element here
is to avoid accidents in the first place, protecting people and the environment from our activities.”
Yet here we are, two years later with a disaster that still seems almost as big as the first days
following the spill. The policy may be in place on paper, but what can those words do about the
long-reaching, life-altering implications of the company’s neglect to follow their own policy?

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