CONSERVATIONISTS AND wildlife experts have accused BP of indiscriminately burning alive endangered sea turtles and other marine creatures in 1,300sq km “burn fields” as it tries to dispose of oil from its leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
The killing of the turtles – which once teetered on the brink of extinction – has outraged environmentalists and could put BP into even deeper legal jeopardy.
Environmental groups are demanding that BP stop blocking rescue of the turtles. They want the Obama administration to halt the burning and to look at prosecuting the oil company and its contractors for killing endangered species during the clean-up operation. Harming or killing a sea turtle carries fines of up to $50,000 (€40,000).
“It is criminal and it is cruel, and they need to be held accountable,” said Carole Allen, Gulf office director of the Sea Turtle Restoration Project.
Government scientists are pressing BP to post wildlife experts as turtle spotters on its clean-up vessels to try to rescue the animals before the oil is lit – or at the very least give them access to the burn fields.
More than 425 turtles are known to have died in the spill zone since April 30th, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration agency said.
Conservationists say the losses could imperil the long-term survival of the creatures. All five species of turtles found in the Gulf are endangered or threatened – the Kemp’s Ridley most of all.
In a video posted on YouTube, Mike Ellis, a skipper from Venice, Louisiana, accuses BP of chasing away a boat of conservationists trying to rescue turtles caught in the oil and weed a few miles away from the leak. “They ran us out of there and then they shut us down,” Mr Ellis said.
On days when the weather is fine and there is relatively little wind, BP conducts up to a dozen “controlled burns”, setting alight vast expanses of the ocean surface within a corral of fireproof booms.
Biologists say such burns are deadly for young turtles because oil and sargassum – the seaweed mats that provide nutrients to jellyfish and a range of other creatures – congregate in the same locations.
The sargassum is a perfect hunting ground for young sea turtles, who are not developed enough to dive to the ocean floor to forage for food.
Once BP moves in, the turtles are doomed. “They drag a boom between two shrimp boats and whatever gets caught between the two boats, they circle it up and catch it on fire,” Mr Ellis said. “Once the turtles are in there, they can’t get out.”
The heartbreak for conservationists is that the floating islands created by the convergence of sargassum and oil offer the best chance of finding and saving young turtles before they suffocate in the crude, but it can be deadly.
“When they breathe and come to the surface, they get a mouthful and a bellyful of toxic substance that is very much like wallpaper paste,” said John Hewitt, the director of husbandry at the New Orleans aquarium. “If we don’t remove them and clean them up in three or four days that probably spells the end of the turtle.” Since the spill, the aquarium has taken in 90 sea turtles, scrubbing the oil off their shells with toothbrushes and washing-up liquid.
“This is the worst calamity that I have ever seen for sea turtles,” said David Godfrey, executive director of the Sea Turtle Conservancy. “This is really the cradle of sea turtle reproduction for the western hemisphere.” – (Guardian service)