Oil-Coated Gulf Birds Better Off Dead? -- National Geographic

[nashville_brook]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/06/100608-gulf-oil-spill-birds-science-environment/


Oil-Coated Gulf Birds Better Off Dead?
Kill or clean? Either way, the birds may face stormy skies.




Since late last week a flood of pictures of oil-coated Gulf of Mexico birds—and conservationists painstakingly cleaning them—has added new emotional impact to the BP oil spill. Some experts—citing traditionally low survival rates for rescued birds—are controversially arguing it would be better to immediately and humanely kill the suffering birds.

In a Spiegel Online article last month, German biologist Silvia Gaus argued that workers helping birds caught in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, should "kill, not clean." Gaus said studies show that more than 99 percent of rehabilitated birds will die anyway as a result of oil exposure, mainly due to kidney and liver damage caused by oil ingestion.

(snip)

"If the rehabbers can convince me that 25-50 percent are going to be successfully cleaned and released back into the environment and not die subsequently and painfully from the oil they have ingested, then OK, let's give it a try," said Remsen, ornithologist and professor at the Louisiana State Department of Biological Sciences in Baton Rouge.

But, he said, "emotionally painful as it is, I would be for euthanizing those birds if it can be shown that the probability of them being successfully rehabbed is low."

[nashville_brook]

1. ...

[jillan]

2. Omg - I can't take it.

:cry: :cry: :cry: I keep telling myself that I will not click on these threads because they upset me so much, but I still do :cry:

[Quantess]

3. Another thing... Where are they supposed to go back to?

Their habitat has been destroyed. You could release them in a similar habitat not yet affected by the oil disaster, but the way this is going, the crude oil will eventually reach their new home, too.