Ocean Tragedy in the Gulf
Facing many threats, including overfishing, plastic gyres, acidification from climate change, and underwater clear-cutting in the form of dredging and trawling, the oceans are perhaps the world's most ravaged ecosystem. Now the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is wreaking even more havoc, with estimates of gallons leaked ranging from 3 million to over 40 million gallons.
While BP
works to contain the spill caused by an
explosion on its Deepwater Horizon oil rig and politicians
debate the future of oil drilling, gulf
communities and national environmental
organizations are scrambling to minimize the damage. As major fishing areas,
gulf ecosystems have already been weakened by overfishing, pollution, and
climate change; the additional impact of a massive oil spill will likely be
devastating to the coastal and marine ecosystems in the gulf. The oil
that is now spreading throughout the gulf waters is coating the habitats,
bodies, and food of species like dolphins,
and will likely prove threatening to the already
critically-endangered bluefin
tuna that use the area as a spawning ground. The oil may destroy the sea-grasses
that act as keystone species in coastal salt marshes, and could coat the
region's coral reefs, affecting the thousands of species who depend on these
habitats for their survival. The region's once-rich biodiversity, including
everything from endangered
marine turtles to sharks, sea birds, and shellfish, is now gravely
imperiled.
Only time will tell how well the gulf's ecosystems and wildlife can survive this disaster. The spill is another reminder of how fragile all the world's ecosystems are--and how important it is for us to protect them.
Image from TreeHugger.com
