Paradise Lost

The cause to the tragic oil rig explosion that is now spewing an endless river of oil into the Gulf of Mexico remains unknown. Plenty of finger pointing will ensue. Regardless, as you sit and read this, thousands of gallons of oil pour out daily from their natural reservoir thousands of feet below the ocean floor.

Clean-up crews have had to struggle against rough seas and strong winds to contain the spreading oil slick as it approaches shore. While in its path lay numerous species, unaware and unprotected from the massacre that awaits them. Bottlenose dolphins use the shallower waters to birth, endangered species of sea turtles have already begun their annual nesting season in the area – a few have already been discovered dead off the coast of Louisiana – and countless species of birds, many of which are already endangered, migrate through the area this time of year.

Finger-pointing is never the answer – but a catastrophe such as this certainly merits a careful review of our society’s lurid and seemingly unquenchable obsession with oil. How much longer should the United States postpone alternative, renewable energy on a massive scale and put off a whole new generation and industry of jobs?

And who is truly paying the ultimate price, humanity and its loss of other species of animals and plants that can never be replaced, or the wildlife itself and natural habitat lost and vanished from our purview? A life lost, or a paler world – denied one more color to its once limitless spectrum.

As a tribute to the wildlife and natural habitat of this area, following is a brief list of those expected to suffer the greatest casualties. Future blogs will elaborate more on these and others as the collateral damage to this catastrophe is more accurately tallied.

Brown pelicans (formerly endangered), Least terns, Piping plovers, Wilson’s plovers, migrating song birds, endangered Kemps Ridley sea turtles, Bottlenose dolphins, Blue fin tuna (only place they spawn in the western Atlantic), shrimp and all associated habitat.