Biologists fear Gulf wildlife will suffer for generations [View All]

[Barrett808]

Oiled birds may be cleaned up and beaches may be scrubbed, but the lingering affect of the poisonous gunk from the BP oil spill may be generations of wildife that is riddled with disease and deprived of food, Greenpeace researchers claim.

"We've all seen images of oiled birds and seeing the dolphins rising up through the oil, dead hermit crabs, things like that," said John Hocevar, a marine biologist and Greenpeace's oceans campaign manager. "For me the real concern is the long term impacts, the loss of habitat, the impacts on the whole food web. We're really looking at an entire ecosystem that's in real trouble." ...

The animals not killed outright by the oil spill, Hocevar said, will suffer "sub-lethal" effects on digestion, reproduction and other physiological systems for decades. As the most basic form of bottom feeders, such as plankton, die out, small fish and mammals above them will be forced to contend with a food source that is at once dwindling and diseased, perpetuating a vicious cycle, he said. ...

"What we've been seeing and hearing from BP and sometimes the government has often been very different from what independent scientists are saying."

Biologists fear Gulf wildlife will suffer for generations