BP and Endangered Species

BP Blocks Attempt to Save Endangered Sea Turtles from Oil Spill

A shrimp boat captain in Louisiana hired by BP was blocked from rescuing juvenile Kemp's ridleys that were covered in oil in the Gulf waters. He was captured on video saying that the turtles are being collected in the clean-up efforts and burned up like so much ocean debris with other marine life gathering along tide lines where oil also congregates.

He witnessed BP workers burning turtles caught in the oil booms. Rescue efforts are being ended tomorrow.

STRP's Gulf Director Carole Allen responded to the news by saying "The burning of boom and oil when even one sea turtle was seen in the water is a despicable crime."

STRP's Chris Pincetich has been in communication with both the reporter who shot the interview and the Captain who witnessed the illegal killing of sea turtles, and is making arrangements to ensure that sea turtle rescue efforts are not stopped, and can be performed in areas with boomed oil.

Death by fire in the gulf
So-called burn boxes are torching oil from the water's surface at the sacrifice of turtles, crabs, sea slugs and other sea life.

But the burn operations have proved particularly excruciating for the turtle researchers, who have been trolling the same lines of oil and seaweed as the boom boats, hoping to pull turtles out of the sargassum before they are burned alive.

Much of the wildlife here seems doomed in any case. "We've seen the oil covering the turtles so thick they could barely move, could hardly lift their heads," Witherington said. "I won't pretend to know which is the nastiest."

"Turtles just take a long time to die."

Gulf whale found dead by scientists south of rig

In a troubling sign for the Gulf of Mexico's marine mammals, researchers this week found a dead sperm whale floating 77 miles south of the Deepwater Horizon rig site, where some 2.5 million gallons of oil are erupting daily from a mile deep.