Gulf Spill Photos: 9 Animal Victims—Plus 2 Survivors

Sea Turtle

Photograph by Bevil Knapp, European Pressphoto Agency

A rehabilitator checks an oiled Kemp's ridley sea turtle into a clinic in New Orleans, Louisiana, on June 24, 2010.

The oil spill posed a grave threat to the five species of sea turtle living in the Gulf of Mexico, all of which are on the U.S. endangered species list. (See sea turtle pictures.)

As of mid-February, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) counted nearly 1,150 sea turtles that had been stranded or rescued at sea during the spill, more than half of them dead.

Very few of the stranded turtles showed visible signs of oil, yet their numbers were much higher than in previous years—suggesting a link. The agency is still trying to determine the overall effect of the Gulf oil spill on sea turtles, as well as to estimate how many died uncounted, according to NOAA spokesperson Monica Allen. (Get more Gulf oil spill anniversary news.)

To keep sea turtle hatchlings out of the oil's path, some 275 nests were moved from Gulf shores to Florida's eastern coast in July. By the end of summer, nearly 15,000 hatchlings from those nests made their way into the safer waters of the Atlantic.

(Watch video: "Gulf Turtle Eggs Relocated.")

Published April 19, 2011

Brown Pelican

Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic

Three oil-coated brown pelican chicks sit on an island nest in Barataria Bay, Louisiana, in an undated picture.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has documented that more than 900 of the birds were harmed by the Gulf oil spill.

Images of brown pelicans drenched in oil were a common sight last summer. The species became the spill's "poster child" because it had been taken off the U.S. endangered species list just five months before the oil hit, said Melanie Driscoll, Gulf Coast director of bird conservation for the National Audubon Society.

This year, brown pelicans are returning to nest in areas that are still contaminated with oil, Driscoll said, and the extent of the damage to their food supply remains to be seen.

Published April 19, 2011

Wilson's Plover

Photograph by Bill Stripling

A Wilson's plover forages in the tide's wake on a beach in Fort Myers, Florida, in an undated picture.

Only about 6,000 of these little shorebirds exist, and they are extremely vulnerable to disturbance of their beachfront nesting habitat, experts say. (See more bird pictures.)

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has tallied just two Wilson's plovers among some 8,000 birds affected by the spill. But many more undoubtedly perished unseen, in part because a number of cleanup responses were staged near nesting colonies, said the National Audubon Society's Driscoll.

"There were Humvees and ATVs and trucks running up and down the beach," Driscoll said.

(See "Gulf Oil Cleanup Crews Trample Nesting Birds.")

The threat from the spill continues today as tar balls wash up on Louisiana beaches and liquefy in the warm spring sun, she said.

Wilson's plovers and other birds are likely eating oil along with their prey, as well as getting it on their feet and feathers and bringing it back to their nests where it can coat sensitive eggs.

Published April 19, 2011

Seafloor Invertebrates

Photograph courtesy Lophelia II 2010 Expedition/NOAA-OER/BOEMRE

Oil has taken a heavy toll on invertebrates living on the seafloor near the wellhead.

In a series of submarine dives in December, a team led by University of Georgia marine scientist Samantha Joye documented what she has called an "invertebrate graveyard."

There were dead corals and brittle stars (similar to the living ones pictured here, clinging to a sea fan in the Gulf in 2010), as well as tube worms filled with oily slime. Sea cucumbers, typically numerous, were absent altogether. The few creatures left alive often looked sickly and behaved abnormally, Joye found.

She attributed the carnage to suffocation or poisoning by "slime streamers"—the waste of oil-eating microbes that have rained down on the seafloor since the Gulf oil spill began.

In many places, bottom sediment was blanketed with the slime, which does not appear to be degrading.

Published April 19, 2011

Atlantic Bluefin Tuna

Photograph courtesy NOAA

Atlantic bluefin tuna (seen schooling in an undated picture) are high on the list of species scientists have feared would be devastated by the Gulf oil spill.

As the most sought-after seafood, Atlantic bluefin populations had already plunged by 80 percent or more when the spill struck.

(See related pictures: "Tuna Demand Pressures Wild Stocks.")

In a worst-case-scenario for the imperiled western North Atlantic bluefin stock, the Gulf oil spill landed smack in the fish's only known spawning ground—right during the spawning season. Vulnerable eggs and larvae, along with adult fish, were undoubtedly exposed to toxic crude and chemical dispersants, experts say.

For now, the spill's effect on bluefin and other Gulf fish remains unknown, William Richards, a retired senior scientist for the National Marine Fisheries Service in Miami, said by email.

Last year, oil clogged nets used for collecting baby bluefin and sampling was interrupted, preventing a complete population estimate, said Richards, who has long studied bluefin larvae.

Scientists will begin sampling this year's larvae in late April, but no results will be available until late 2011.

Published April 19, 2011

Pancake Batfish

Photograph by Dr. Prosanta Chakrabarty, Louisiana State University

While oil was still pouring out of the damaged well, scientists announced the discovery of two odd fish species called pancake batfish that reside in the Gulf of Mexico. The fish are palm-size and flat, with sturdy fins that they use to "walk" along the seafloor.

(See pictures: "Nine Fish With 'Hands' Found to Be New Species.")

One of the two, Halieutichthys intermedius (pictured in an undated photograph), has been found only in or near the region directly hit by the Gulf oil spill, which does not bode well for it, said Prosanta Chakrabarty, a fish biologist at Louisiana State University who helped discover the species.

"They weren't terribly common in the first place," Chakrabarty said, and he hasn't heard of any being collected since the spill began.

On the other hand, he said, pancake batfish live in relatively shallow water, from which much of the oil has been removed or degraded—so the fish may have escaped the worst of the spill.

Published April 19, 2011

Various Insects and Spiders

Photograph courtesy Chuan-Kai Ho, Texas A&M

Marsh-dwelling spiders and insects, such as the planthopper Prokelisia marginata (pictured in an undated photograph), took a beating in the spill, according to Steven Pennings, a biologist at the University of Houston.

Pennings and graduate student Brittany DeLoach McCall sampled arthropods in both oiled and pristine marshes along the Gulf coast. The team found the heavily oiled vegetation closest to the sea in damaged marshes was completely devoid of insects and spiders.

Surprisingly, farther inland—where oil was visible in the soil but plants looked healthy—the scientists still found 50 to 75 percent fewer insects and spiders than they did in the unoiled marshes, said Pennings.

"You can't necessarily tell whether there's been an oil impact just by looking at the plants," he said. "The plants could be healthy, and yet you could have lost the majority of the food web."

(See pictures: "Oil Spill to Slowly Poison Alabama Marsh?")

How long it will take the creepy crawlies to recover remains to be seen. Fortunately, Pennings said, it appears that less marshland was polluted by the spill than people had feared.

Published April 19, 2011

Oyster

Photograph by Gerald Herbert, AP

A marine biologist samples oysters at a hatchery in Grand Isle, Louisiana, on August 9, 2010.

The shellfish are one of the northern Gulf's dietary and economic staples, and they were already threatened by pollution, habitat destruction, and overharvesting when the Gulf oil spill dealt them another heavy blow.

(See "Oyster Herpes: Latest Symptom of Global Warming?")

The crude contributed to the deaths of many oyster beds and made others unsuitable for human consumption. Other oysters died after authorities released freshwater inland in an effort to keep oil from penetrating into sensitive estuaries, flooding oyster beds in the process and disrupting their salt balance.

Early this year, some of the first post-spill recovery projects included oyster bed restoration in Alabama and elsewhere. Volunteers planted bags of oyster shells on mudflats offshore in hopes that larvae would settle there and kick-start new reefs.

Published April 19, 2011

Florida Manatee

Photograph by Brian Skerry, National Geographic

A Florida manatee swims in a freshwater spring in Crystal River, Florida, in 2009.

The Gulf oil spill came at a terrible time for manatees, following on the heels of an unusually severe winter that killed off nearly 400 of the bulky marine mammals—a record number.

And the blowout occurred at a time of year when some intrepid manatees begin to strike out for the summer along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama—which was right into the spill zone.

Yet no animals were reported to be directly harmed by the oil, according to the Save The Manatee Club, a conservation group based in Maitland, Florida.

Still, as with most animals living in the Gulf of Mexico, the long-term effects of the Deepwater Horizon spill remain to be seen. Of particular concern is whether oil and chemical dispersants will persist in the environment or contaminate the manatees' main food supply of seagrass, according to the conservation group.

(See "Gulf Spill Dispersants Surprisingly Long-lasting.")

Published April 19, 2011

Deep-Sea Coral

Photograph by Cheryl Morrison, USGS

In November, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced the discovery of two communities of dead and dying deep-sea corals 7 miles (11 kilometers) from the damaged well and about 4,600 feet (1,400 meters) beneath the waves.

The corals were discolored, degraded, and coated with a brown substance that made researchers suspect the Gulf oil spill was the cause.

Fortunately, despite a number of expeditions, no additional deep-sea coral die-offs have turned up yet, said Steve Ross, a marine biologist at the University of North Carolina Wilmington who studies some of the biggest, most vibrant deep-sea coral sites in the Gulf (pictured, a deep-sea coral species in the genus Lophelia). Some of his sites are located just 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the damaged well, but they appeared healthy on recent visits.

"We've been working these sites for years," Ross said. "We know what they're supposed to look like, and they didn't look any different.”

But subtler effects may take years to appear. "There certainly is a tremendous amount of concern over the potential for long-term impacts."

Published April 19, 2011