Pollution Of The Seas

Pelican

The various toxins that they have to deal with has caused untold disaster for seabirds.  DDT, oil spills, agricultural chemical runoff and so much more has poisoned many birds.

Oil spills account for hundreds of thousands of sea birds dying each year. In America alone, there are 12 spills into navigable waters of 4000 litres or more reported daily.

How many aren’t reported?  Think of all the places that have fewer (or no) environmental laws than America, war-ravished areas such the Niger Delta in Nigeria or areas that have almost no enforcement of whatever environmental regulations there might be such as India, areas in Asia, the countries of the former Soviet Union, South Africa, etc.

Despite the best efforts of volunteers, seabirds contaminated with oil stand little chance of surviving the clogging of their wings so they can’t fly, the removal of the waterproofing of their feathers so they get cold and waterlogged or as they clean off their feathers, the ingestion of oil that burns their insides.

If they do survive all that, what about the food they eat, all of which is contaminated by the oil?

Even after the heroic efforts of people to clean the birds, perhaps they will catch and help 1/10^thof those contaminated, the ones out at sea will die.

Thirty to forty percent of those who survive the month of cleaning and rehabilitation will be released into the wild.  In one oil spill disaster in 2007, only 1% of the guillemots released after rehabilitation were still alive a year later.

Of course, it’s not only the news-making spills that do the damage, discharges of waste oil and other hazardous liquids, outlets of sewage, careless releases of all manner of waste materials from land and sea going vessels also do considerable damage to sea birds and other sea creatures.