BP oil kills fish

This video from the USA says about itself:

11 July 2007 — The critically endangered smalltooth sawfish is threatened by habitat destruction by the construction of an oversized development – Bimini Bay Resort. It is not only the sawfish that is under threat – the mangrove and sea grass lagoons are nursery areas for many species of fish, lobster and conch. Sharks, rays and turtles are also found here.

There have been accusations of bribes made to government officials and council members to allow the project to go ahead on land that was to be designated as a marine protected area.

The digging made the local wells brackish so the developers were required to build a water plant to supply the local people – trouble is that when the developers are using lots of water the local people are left with none.

USA: How Dick Cheney Helped Cause the BP oil spill: here.

From World Science:

Oil spill threatens iconic fish with saw-like snout

May 27, 2010

Courtesy of the University of Florida and World Science staff

The oil spill caused by the col­lapse of a BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mex­i­co threat­ens to kill off a crit­ic­ally en­dan­gered saw­fish and its rel­a­tive, says a Uni­vers­ity of Flor­i­da sci­ent­ist.

The an­i­mals are the only two ma­rine fish in Un­ited States wa­ters to re­ceive such fed­er­al pro­tection.

The large­tooth saw­fish, a pop­u­lar cu­ri­o item known for its saw­like snout, was pro­posed as a fed­er­ally en­dan­gered spe­cies on May 7, less than three weeks af­ter mas­sive amounts of oil started gush­ing in­to Gulf wa­ters, said the uni­vers­ity’s George Bur­gess.

“The oil spill will not only have very dire ef­fects on such highly vis­i­ble crea­tures as seabirds and dol­phins, but al­so threat­ens a mul­ti­tude of bot­tom-dwelling or­gan­isms in­clud­ing the small­tooth saw­fish, which al­ready is in con­si­der­able trou­ble as its range di­min­ished and its num­bers dwin­dled,” he said.

What’s left of the small­tooth saw­fish popula­t­ion is con­fined to the low­er pen­in­su­la of Flor­i­da, Bur­gess said, with the most im­por­tant ar­ea rang­ing from Char­lotte Har­bor through the Ten Thou­sand Is­lands ar­ea of the Ev­er­glades in­to Flor­i­da Bay and the Keys. That’s where the larg­est por­tion of its nurs­er­ies is found and these are now threat­ened by the oil spill, he said.

“As oil gets caught up in the loop cur­rent, it will be pulled down in­to the Gulf Stream, which goes right by Key West on its way up the U.S. East Coast,” Bur­gess said. “The op­por­tun­i­ties for se­ri­ous ec­o­log­i­cal prob­lems are mind bog­gling, with dire im­plica­t­ions for what’s left of that spe­cies in the north­west At­lantic Ocean if the oil reaches crit­ical man­grove habi­tat.”

The large­tooth saw­fish, which was most com­mon in the north­western Gulf of Mex­i­co, has not been en­coun­tered in dec­ades. Its close rel­a­tive, the small­tooth saw­fish, was list­ed as an en­dan­gered spe­cies in 2003 and sur­vives in the U.S. only at the south­ern tip of Flor­i­da.

Con­serva­t­ion­ists had hoped con­di­tions would be­come fa­vor­a­ble for both saw­fish spe­cies even­tu­ally to stage a come­back in Gulf wa­ters, Bur­gess said. Far more com­mon to South and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, the large­tooth saw­fish mi­grat­ed up the Cen­tral Amer­i­can coast dur­ing the sum­mer in­to the Gulf, the edge of its nat­u­ral ge­o­graph­ic range, he said.

“If im­por­tant un­der­wa­ter hab­i­tat is de­stroyed, nei­ther spe­cies will have a place to re­turn to,” he said. “They can’t come back to an un­der­wa­ter desert.”

A crea­ture of his­tor­ic and cul­tur­al in­ter­est, the saw­fish was some­times de­picted as a so-called mon­ster on post­cards from the turn of the cen­tu­ry, with sto­ries of its catch­ing rou­tinely pub­lished in news­pa­pers out­side Flor­i­da, Bur­gess said. To­day it is not un­usu­al to find the fish’s “saw” hang­ing from the walls of South Flor­i­da bars, he added.

The last time a large­tooth saw­fish was seen in U.S. wa­ters was in 1961, said Bur­gess, who is cu­ra­tor of the Na­tional Saw­fish En­coun­ter Database, a com­pen­di­um of all known his­tor­ic and cur­rent records of saw­fish in the Un­ited States. The preda­tor’s close rel­a­tive, the small­tooth saw­fish, once swam in bays, la­goons and riv­ers ex­tend­ing from New York to the Ri­o Gran­de, he added.

The saw­fish’s fear­some, long, toothy snout is uti­lized to stun fish­es and un­earth crus­taceans, shell­fish and oth­er food bur­ied in the bot­tom. It takes long­er for saw­fish to re­bound from a popula­t­ion crash than oth­er spe­cies be­cause of its rel­a­tively slow growth rate and its late on­set of sex­u­al matur­ity, Bur­gess warned. “Our recovery plan co­vers 100 years, which should give a pret­ty good in­dica­t­ion of how much trou­ble the an­i­mal is in,” he said.

Scientists released a significantly higher estimate of the amount of oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, poisoning the environment and damaging the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people: here.

BP oil spill: estimates of oil spewing into Gulf of Mexico double: here.

Maddow: Republicans Demanded to ‘Defund’ ACORN – When are They Going to Call to ‘Defund’ BP? Here.

Compare and contrast ACORN vs. BP and federal contracts: here.

Human rights group: BP discouraging crews from using respirators: here.

Oil Disaster Shows Need for Endangered Species Act Overhaul: here.