In 2010 the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig, which was owned by the British Petroleum Co., blew up and spilled more than 200 million gallons of crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico. The leakage from the rig lasted about 87 days, which made it the biggest oil spill in American history. The Gulf coastlines the American states of Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and a bit of Alabama. The oil spill affected many things, it took the lives of many organisms in the sea, such as birds, whales, sea otters, coral, fish, and much more. Sadly, it even took the lives of 11 oil rig workers when the explosion happened. 82,000 birds were affected, 167,000 sea turtles were affected, 26,000 marine animals were affected, and an uncountable amount of fish and sea coral were affected. The birds in the gulf suffered deeply. During the six months after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon (A.K.A. BP Oil Spill), more than 7,000 birds were collected in the spill area, of which nearly 3,000 (about 40%) showed visible signs of oiling. Around 32 percent of laughing gulls have died as a result of the oil spill, the National Wildlife Federation said.(Hoch, Maureen 2014) In addition, the spill got on the bird’s feathers, and caused them to mat. When the feathers start to mat, they start to separate, which exposes the animal's skin to different temperature extremes. It can result in hypothermia or hyperthermia, and eventually kill the bird.. Birds also try and make themselves clean of the oil, so they try and peck at their feathers to clean them. This results in ingestion of the oils, and ultimately leads to organ tissue damage from the toxins, and eventually death. At least 93 species of the bird were exposed to the oil, and scientists think that will have an effect on the food webs on the northern gulf area. The sea turtles of the gulf have been highly affected as well. They have suffered from ingestion of oil, organ damage, and irritation of the skin from the oil. The oil from the spill has also killed off a plant called Sargassum- which is a type of floating seaweed which is an important habitat for juvenile sea turtles. It is also also said that between 27,000 and 65,000 Kemp's ridley sea turtles died during the oil spill and that the number of nests discovered every year since has gone down, despite being on the upswing before 2010. "This is substantiated by sound science and supported by many experts across the Gulf region and beyond," Ryan Fikes, co-author of the report, told NBC News. An explosion on the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon oil rig in April 2010 …show more content…
Disturbing numbers of mutated fish were seen in the Gulf. Scientists and fishermen are pointing to the spill, the dispersants and chemicals used in its cleanup as the cause of these deformities which include shrimp born without eyes, fish with lesions, fish with oozing sores and, according to a local fisher-woman, "We are also finding eyeless crabs, crabs with their shells soft instead of hard, full grown crabs that are one-fifth their normal size, clawless crabs, and crabs with shells that don't have their usual spikes ... they look like they've been burned off by chemicals". The dispersants are known to be mutagenic. In Barataria Bay, Louisiana, an area "heavily impacted by oil and dispersants", 50% of shrimp were found lacking eyes and eye sockets. Another lifelong fisher-woman reported seeing "fish without covers over their gills and others with large pink masses hanging off their eyes and gills". A 2014 study of the effects of the oil spill on bluefin tuna, published in the journal Science, found that oil already broken down by wave action and chemical dispersants was more toxic than fresh oil. Prior to the spill, approximately 0.1% of Gulf fish had lesions or sores. A report from the University of Florida said trete and less soil for polluted water to soak into instead of becoming runoff. This summer, we've learned that our state needs to instill better, more efficient flood control practices. All these factors that have contributed to the dead zone can fortunately be fixed or