Effects of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are numerous and devastating, and the Gulf’s turtles are among the casualties.
Ten days after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded April 20, 35 turtles were found stranded on the shores of Galveston and the Bolivar Peninsula in Texas. All but three were dead.
Twenty more turtles were found dead May 2 along a 30-mile stretch of Mississippi beaches from Biloxi to Bay St. Louis.
When not laying their eggs, the turtles can be found anywhere within the Gulf of Mexico, but they prefer the waters off the coast of Louisiana.
Many people assumed the oil spill is the cause of the turtles’ death with the timing of the oil rig explosion.
Oil kills in two ways, said Donald Baltz, a professor with the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Studies.
“Light components tend to be toxic to the animals, while heavy components tend to smother,” Baltz said.
Javier Nevarez, director of the University’s Raptor and Wildlife Rehabilitation Unit, said many maladies result when animals and oil combine.
“With smothering, many animals die because they try to clean themselves and ingest the oil, resulting in everything from anemia to respiratory and pulmonary failure,” Nevarez said.
Others die of hypothermia because the oil impedes the animals’ abilities to heat themselves, Baltz said.
High amounts of heavy components of the oil can also block the oxygen exchange between air and water, resulting in suffocation.
But experts say these risks might not be the reason for the turtles’ deaths.The turtles are likely being killed by boats used to clean up the spill, according to some early necropsies, which found the Mississippi turtles hadn’t been killed by the oil.
Many boats are entering the Gulf to aid in the cleanup because of the disaster’s magnitude. The turtles are more likely to be killed as a result.Experts say there are many possible explanations for the deaths because as of Monday only five necropsies had been conducted.
“If a fish dies of oil poisoning because oil clogs their gills, effectively suffocating the creature, then another creature eats that fish and ingests the oil,” Baltz said.
Most of the turtles found dead were Kemp’s Ridley turtles — the most endangered species of turtles in the U.S. because they lay their eggs only on certain beaches in Texas and Mexico, according to the Office of Protective Resources.
Many turtles are killed by boats as they swim to shore to lay their eggs because they lay eggs during shrimping season.
Contact Andrew Hanson at [email protected]