BP is Burning Oil ... and Sea Turtles

It’s not just oil going up in flames in the controlled burns BP has been setting off in the Gulf of Mexico. According to eyewitnesses, sea turtles and other marine life trapped in the oil slick are being burned alive — and BP is preventing rescuers from saving the creatures’ lives.

The Los Angeles Times reported last week that converging ocean currents are collecting long clusters of sargassum seaweed along with the spilled oil, creating 30-mile-long "islands of death." The booms trailing BP ships indiscriminately gather up the oil and seaweed (as well as whatever critters have the misfortune to be clinging to it), which is then torched. The 100-foot flames mark an area referred to as the "burn box."

Since April, more than 5 million gallons of oil have been ignited in more than 165 burns. No statistics are available as to the number of turtles and other marine creatures trapped and ignited in those burns. BP executives must be breathing a huge collective sigh of relief over that.

The Times story follows a team of turtle researchers as they cruise near Deepwater Horizon, shadowing the boom boats’ paths in an effort to save any turtles before they are incinerated. Not that the poor creatures have a chance for survival anyway.

"We've seen the oil covering the turtles so thick they could barely move, could hardly lift their heads," said Blair Witherington, a research scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. As for their almost certain death by either suffocation or fire, he conceded, "I won't pretend to know which is the nastiest."

In one case, the crew watched helplessly as a long, thick clump of seaweed was gathered by BP boats and burned — seaweed they were sure was full of sea turtles.

"In a perfect world, they'd gather up the material and let us search it before they burned it," Witherington said. "But that connection hasn't been made. The lines of communication aren't there." At least the team was able to save 11 turtles that day, all of them coated with oil.

Not so fortunate was Mike Ellis, a boat captain who had planned a three-week rescue mission to save endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtles. In a YouTube interview with conservation biologist Catherine Craig, he said BP "ran us out of there, and then they shut us down. They would not let us go back in there. And in the meantime, how many turtles got caught up and just burned?"

Ellis said he witnessed a boom being dragged between two BP boats. Whatever was caught was then set on fire. "Once the turtles are in there, they can’t get out," he said.

Could BP be shooing away sea turtle rescuers in an attempt to destroy expensive evidence? Dr. Brian Stacy, a veterinarian with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in an NPR interview that the majority of the 300 sea turtles that have been found dead or covered in oil were Kemp’s ridleys, "the rarest of them all." Under the Endangered Species Act, harming or killing just one of these turtles carries a civil penalty of $500 to $25,000 and a criminal penalty of $25,000-$50,000 plus possible prison time ... quite a chunk of change for BP.

But Stacy said only a small percentage of the dead Kemp’s ridleys will ever be found. Well, that makes one less pesky worry for BP CEO Tony Hayward when he’s trying to enjoy a yacht race.

While it’s amazing the Kemp’s ridleys and other sea turtles have survived this long without food in oil-infested waters, Witherington said their long-term chances “are zero.”

In a statement that would appall anyone but BP executives, he added, "Turtles just take a long time to die."

Photo credit: qnr