BP Oil Spill: Daily Dead Wildlife Tally

dailydeadbirds.com and @bpdeadbirds, generated with data from the US Fish and Wildlife reports. Tracks the daily death toll from the BP oil spill. No commentary, just the numbers. (Thanks, Amy and Stacy)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

MORE: Environment • News

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Anonymous

im crying right now and i dont think i’ll ever stop
NickPheas

Does that include the mammals working on the rig when it exploded?
- Anonymous
  
  nice i was thinking about that
InsertFingerHere

I found this widget on PBS.com . Depressing.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/oil-ticker/video.html
brain_dali

please everybody, let’s make this link viral.

and just to get it off my chest. how the hell is is that we can get monkeys into space and men on the moon but we cant fix this leak?
- Anonymous
  
  The big issue with the leak is one of pressure. This thing is going at a potential 40,000 barrels of oil a day.
  
  That’s 1.7 million gallons per day, or 1180 gallons PER MINUTE. And the hole in the pipe is apparently only about 20 inches across.
  
  Look at this as the ultimate fire-hose. What can you put over the end of it to completely shut it down. That kind of force could punch a hole in a stone wall.
InsertFingerHere

I’m blind, it’s PBS.org .. silly me.
jeffv

Bhopal, immediate human death toll 3,787. Deaths in a week: around 8,000. Total death due to gas: around 15,000-16,000. No of people with injuries and disabilities relating to the gassing: estimated at 100,000 to 200,000. No of bird death: unknown. Number of non-human mammal deaths: unknown, but greater than 2,000. Number of convictions relating to the deaths: 7. Fine paid per conviction: around $2,000. Compensation paid by Union Carbide: $470 million. Amount Union Carbide sold for: $10.3 billion.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster which may contain errors.
- Anonymous
  
  Well done for pointing this out Jeff.
  
  Let’s not also forget the SECOND DISASTER in Bhopal… While the pesticide plant was operational vast amounts of toxic waste were simply dumped all around.
  Over the years toxic chemicals leached into the ground water (the only source of drinking water for 10′s of thousands of people).
  This has NOTHING to do with the 1984 gas disaster, except for being caused by the same factory, and even the US courts acknowledge this fact.
  So, how much has Dow Chemical (owners of Union Carbide) done to put the situation right, and how much compensation has been paid?
  That’s right… ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
  Obama is quite right to pursue BP to the max but the double standards here are almost beyond belief…
  check http://www.bhopal.org for more info
inness

Over at Huffington Post there’s a good article by Ricki Ott (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/from-the-ground-bp-censor_b_608724.html?ir=Daily%20Brief), who reports that one reason BP doesn’t want media/public scrutiny of the oil spill is because they’re currently engaged in destroying evidence in the form of dead animals. It seems they’re having they’re employees (contract workers, not volunteers or NOAA employees as was done with the Exxon Valdez spill) collect and dispose of animal carcasses, thus interfering with an essential aspect of determining the overall damage of the spill.
It just gets uglier and uglier.
Anonymous

For one the whole bp oil spill is bull. You figure the men that were killed on the rig do you realize bp new about gas pockets the whole time and they just ignored it. Now because of them ignoring all of the warning signs none of this shit would’ve happened. but no bp tries to save more and more money. Animals are my life as the numbers go up and up it pisses me off to see the death toll is a lot higher than it seems
HeavyG

I think we can all agree that what is happening in and to the Gulf is a tragedy and it sucks.

However, what is the point of trying to keep a body count?

Each and every year tens of million of birds are killed by car windshields and flying into building windows. Millions of land animals become roadkill each year.

I know it gives many people warm fuzzy feelings to try and capture many of these oil soaked critters and scrub them clean it is my understanding that most of those animals don’t live very long after release anyway due to the shock and trauma of the incident and also the handling/cleaning by humans.
fubbs

This kind of thing also makes me wonder about the animals that left the area in time. Once any creature has deemed an area uninhabitable, how long does it take for them (and their offspring) to venture back? In other words, even if all the oil magically went away tomorrow, how much would the sudden lack of wildlife affect the ecosystem?
Hawkman

Maybe to help BP in their collection efforts we should ship all the dead wildlife to BP headquarters….for as many decades at this affects the Gulf Coast wildlife…fish, birds, turtles, porpoise’, crabs, shrimp, oyster. I’m fuking serious.
Anonymous

I reviewed the US Fish and Wildlife stats. According to them, only 10-15% of these animals are found with traces of oil on them. The rest have “No visible Oil” on them.

They also disclose this: “Some fish and wildlife reported here have likely died or been injured by natural causes, not due to the oil spill. Due to the increased number of trained people evaluating the spill impacted areas, it is also likely that we will recover more naturally injured or dead fish and wildlife than normal.”

Not to say BP didn’t do a horrible thing, I just think there might be a chance that these numbers are inflated.
Lora

Using the “Migratory Bird Treaty Act” values each bird @ $2000 and is a felony. So thats 725 birds X $2000 = $1,450,000 & 725 felony counts.
Anonymous

Total bullshit. I can’t believe anyone takes these numbers seriously. many, many, many orders of magnitude worse than this. it would be impossible to collect all the dead
- Anonymous
  
  I’m convinced that many of the dead have been hidden or destroyed by BP. That’s why they don’t want anybody else around – they might witness the REAL count.
Anonymous

its sad knowing that the numbers are still growing on these dead, poor creatures… =(
Anonymous

I heard 320 dead sea turtles from several sources, although it’s likely that not all of them are directly caused by the oil spill. Turtles with oil on them number 32 right now with probably many more to come. Wonder where they got their info.
Anonymous

Well…It appears that the ~30000 gallon leak in the Red Butte Creak in Salt Lake contaminated 300 birds, although only about 10 have died so far
Anonymous

I would like to know why do they not just blast it shut.That could have been done days after the disaster happened.O! then they cant get to the oil again.So screw the enviroment, its always about the money isnt it? Start buying biofuel.
Louis
Anonymous

Too bad it wasn’t a BBQ spill….that could have been delicous…
MadRat

I get the feeling that a lot of powerful people are trying to cover up the full scale of the disaster. I’m not going to get into naming names, because no matter which side I take someone will be offended by it.
aaron_in_sf

Sometimes an image, or a sound, makes abstractions such as death tallies more tangible and emotionally real.

My sound recording peer Martyn Stewart recently visited some of the affected areas and posted htis earlier this week:

http://soundofcritters.com/archives/1152

I’d acquired “old news” syndrome with respect to the ‘spill’ but this made the disaster painfully fresh again. :/

Well worth watching.

aaron
Quickley

I realize that it’s been getting dangerous to do so for a long time, but can somebody tell me if it’ll ever be safe to eat any fish or seafood, like, ever again after this?
- Anonymous
  
  Yes…it is safe to eat seafood…if it’s from the Pacific or North Atlantic: for now anyway. But the ecosystem has indeed been damaged by this…and it will be years (if not decades) before we know how much we all really lost through this terrible disaster.
Anonymous

How come the oil spill hasn’t been indicated in the mass bird deaths at all?
Anonymous

I’m thinking that if you were to post articial foxes, where the oil slick is that effects the wild birds and animals that could help save the bird . for they fear fox.
Teller

The rate the oil is gushing, all heartbreaking damage notwithstanding, is testimony to what a major discovery it is. Oilmen who were certain the flow would abate by now are shocked it hasn’t. All of which means, after the leak has been stopped, one way or another, that field will be tapped.
Anonymous

BP is responsible for every life taken or damaged from his oil spill, the cut corners making the oil well dangerous and unstable and because of this cheap and selfish company Wildlife is dying, beaches are ruined, and when the oil clean-up process starts if they mess up, which they most likely will, they will cause more complications. To the American Public: we all need to take action, although it was not our mistake we can ot let innocent animals suffer, so be their voice, go help, trust me it’s needed
Anonymous

Does the “dead mammals” include the oil workers?
- Anonymous
  
  Yes it does….What do you think will happen to the rest of the U.S. when all is shut down in the gulf though?
- Anonymous
  
  this is not good i feel bad for the animals
- Anonymous
  
  Huh, didnâ€™t man cause the spill? When itâ€™s a natural disaster, then man is included.
- Anonymous
  
  i hope not
Brainspore

In that case I’ll comment: these are the ones that have been collected and thus likely represent a miniscule fraction of the actual numbers. The “released” stats also don’t track how many of the cleaned animals die within days from ingesting oil (which is most of them).
- Anonymous
  
  I also noticed that, but did not say anything …yet. sigh:::: I was also thinking that I hope the oil washed birds are not going to get sick. But I think of the law of attraction and remember that we need to think the best! Because thoughts are VERY powerful! It is VERY true, more than we realize. Hope and Faith can be VERY powerful too. I am sharing from years of metaphysical studies, not from rose-colored glasses.
timbuktukathmandu

Please; If you have any power over this situation, capture all the live animals in the gulf and put them into sanctuaries until it is safe for them to return them to their natural habitat.

Everything in the gulf is going to die. The only way to save the life there is to remove it and ark it.

The east coast is not far behind. Please preemptively save the animals. Don’t wait until they’re covered in oil!
- Anonymous
  
  Exactly, that’s what we have to do. Please, if you have any power do it and save any living things near that mess.
- Anonymous
  
  Ocean and marine biologist shoud consider giving crash courses to lay-persons that are so willing to help.
Teller

47 mammals.
Aloisius

Throughout this whole event what has shocked me the most is how little visible damage this oil spill has caused compared to what I expected.

If you look at pictures of beaches from much smaller oil spills, they are literally black with small patches of tan sand. The Exxon Valdez blanketed the coastline with oil and killed some 250,000 birds, 22 orcas, 2,800 sea otters and more.

Could it be that deep ocean drilling causes less damage per gallon of oil released than surface spills? I mean, we won’t know for a while, but if the underwater plumes actually are biodegraded before making landfall and those animal deaths hold up, it seems like it was significantly less deadly than other spills.
- Anonymous
  
  Exactly the opposite actually. The fact that spill is occurring far beneath the ocean means much of the devastation simply will never make it onto a beach or the water’s surface. Dead animals will choke to death in oxygen depleted water and sink to the bottom of the gulf. As the microbial population increases (the spill is smorgasbord for many tiny things), they will suck the oxygen out of the water and turn huge areas of the gulf hypoxic, depleting massive amounts of low-chain food sources, which will in turn cause larger, more resilient creatures to starve to death.
  
  And who in the hell knows what the dispersant concentrations are going to do there.
  
  The government needs to start making serious estimates on how much of the gulf will be lost. At this point I do not believe 20-25% is out of the realm of possibilities under the revised spill estimates.
- Anonymous
  
  I live on the gulf coast. Trust me, it has made a horrible difference!
- SpacelordMother
  
  It’s what they don’t want you to see that is frightening. Underwater current has pushed this stuff all over and it effects the entire food chain top to bottom.
  
  In short, it’s worse than you can imagine.
- dculberson
  
  You could be right, but it seems likely to me that the damage from an underwater spill is just less visible, which might make it worse. Meaning the plumes continue to kill animals under the surface rather than washing to shore and being cleaned up.
- Anonymous
  
  I recall reading that BP is also keeping media away from the most affected beaches.
  
  These values also don’t reflect fish and as they say there are a lot of fish in the sea.
MrsBug

This makes me sick. And sad.
Anonymous

What is not being reported is the effect on the base animal life,i.e., plankton. What the oil and dispersants have done to them will be the long term question. If they have been adversely effected then you will see a massive die off over the coming months and years of everything along the chain of life in the gulf.
Unfortunately an issue in all the oceans of the world, which is really one big ocean.
Anonymous

Please get the animals out!!! I’m sure there is enough technology and manpower out there to go and capture the remaining animals, be them dolphin, turtle, shark, corals, birds etc) and move them to an uncontaminated area where they will be safe. Save the wildlife BEFORE the oil gets them! I have seen pictures of whole families of dolphins swimming through oil—if you can take a picture I’m sure there is a way to get them out!!!
rechnen

Meanwhile, an estimated 100,000-300,000 birds are killed by wind turbines each year.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/may/03/checking-george-will-birds-and-wind-turbines/

I understand that the oil spill is horrible and needs to be fixed ASAP, but perspective is important. Although, getting covered in oil and cooked is a much worse death than blunt force trauma (where are the lobster activists?).
Anonymous

Let them eat oil !!

BTW, does anybody actually think these absurdly low numbers are accurate ?

more likely its 65,800 birds etc +- 100,000 since you are considering hundreds of square miles of contamination.

etc
Anonymous

You really think so? Wow