Helping Gulf wildlife

As the widening environmental disaster stemming from the ruptured BP oil well extends along the Gulf coast, Ed Clark is casting his gaze beyond, to the days when the record spill vanishes from the headlines.

The president of the Wildlife Center of Virginia, based in Waynesboro, Clark plans to join five other experts in his field in determining the spill’s long-term implications. The team, Clark said, will look at “what we need to do after the cameras go home and the attention of the world has turned away.”

Assembled by the Humane Society of the United States, the team is scheduled to spend six days in the Gulf. Its focus: the effects of exposure to oil on the wildlife that survive the crisis.

“We recognize the oil spill is not going to go away and we want our work there to have a longer-term impact,” Debra Parsons-Drake, senior director of the Humane Society’s animal care centers said. “We hope to determine where we can have the best impact on taking this horrible disaster and putting forth a positive outcome.”

The answers the international experts will encounter likely will be varied and complex, Clark said.

“Very small amounts of oil ingested by waterfowl, just two cubic centimeters, can cause lifelong behavioral changes,” Clark said.

Nervous system effects seen even in exposure to minimal amounts of oil can wreak havoc on the birds’ reproductive systems.

“You may have ducks that look healthy, but don’t quite feel well enough to breed,” Clark said. “They might fly around and do normal duck stuff, but their population may be affected by unwillingness to breed.”

Part of the team’s work will be to determine which types of data should be tracked.

“They’ll be looking at how to help rescue centers compile data for long-term assessment, which includes determining what will be relevant markers in animals that are exposed,” Parsons-Drake said.

Clark said the Wildlife Center plans to unveil an innovative computer tracking system for wildlife rescue centers before the end of the month. The center has been working on the project for about a decade.

In addition to waterfowl, the team plans to study a broad spectrum of affected wildlife, including those under the surface.

“We’re seriously concerned about the wildlife you don’t see, like fish which may be damaged, die and then sink to the bottom of the ocean,” Clark said. “In the case of blue fish tuna, the Gulf is one of only two spawning areas for the fish.”

Commonly served in restaurants, the massive fish currently sell for thousands of dollars each.

Other concerns on the team’s radar include the long-term environmental effects of displaced fishing and shrimping industries.

“About a third of shrimp consumed worldwide comes out of the Gulf,” Clark said. “This could raise the price of shrimp, putting pressure on other areas to produce more through shrimp farms, which are terribly devastating to coastal environments. They’re often placed close to coastlines where mainlands are dredged or destroyed.”

Negative environmental effects are also realized when ocean water used for raising shrimp is pumped untreated back into the sea. Nutrient byproducts may lead to rapid growth of algae, which in turn depletes the amount of oxygen in the water available to sea life.

“Not only do we need to be concerned about what’s happening in the Gulf, but what could happen in other parts of the world as well,” Clark said.