Oil-soaked pelicans struggling to fly came to symbolize the catastrophic impacts of the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the inhabitants of the Gulf of Mexico. Fifteen years later, brown pelicans in the region have seen some recovery, but other wildlife species haven’t been as fortunate, Mongabay’s Liz Kimbrough reported in April.
Researchers estimate that some 1 million birds, across 93 species, were killed due to the disaster, when an oil rig operated by BP Exploration & Production exploded and sank off the Louisiana coast, becoming the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
Of the dead birds, there were an estimated 27,000 brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis). Oil from the spill had destroyed much of the bird’s critical nesting habitat, but the species, which was among the hardest hit, benefited from the rebuilding of islands for nesting, paid for with settlement money from BP.
Around $18.7 million was spent on a project expanding Queen Bess Island off Louisiana to create 15 hectares (37 acres) of habitat for pelicans and other birds. The results are impressive, Kimbrough writes: wildlife officials recorded 30,000 birds on the island in 2023, including 6,000 brown pelican nests.
“So I think populations, if you can give them healthy habitat, they can recover with time,” Alisha Renfro from the National Wildlife Federation told Kimbrough.
Sea turtles, meanwhile, saw huge declines due to the oil spill, with an estimated death toll of 4,900-7,600 large juvenile and adult sea turtles and 56,000-166,000 small juvenile sea turtles. Between 27,000 and 65,000 Kemp’s ridley turtles (Lepidochelys kempii) died there in 2010.
“Even today, researchers are finding evidence of lingering health impacts on some Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, such as abnormal hormone levels that can affect metabolism and other body processes,” according to the National Wildlife Federation.
Although rescue teams retrieved sea turtles and their eggs, treated and then release them in clean waters after the disaster, the critically endangered Kemp’s ridley, the vulnerable loggerhead (Caretta caretta), the endangered green (Chelonia mydas) and the critically endangered hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) sea turtles are still in peril. Experts say it will likely take many more years to know the impacts of the spill on sea turtles that spend most of their lives at sea.
Whales and dolphins, too, are continuing to see long-term effects, with steep population declines and lingering health impacts. Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in heavily affected Barataria Bay are still sick 15 years later, Cynthia Smith from the National Marine Mammal Foundation told Kimbrough.
Meanwhile, responders to the oil spill have experienced changes in blood, liver, lung and heart functions years after the spill. “I think 15 years is too early to tell what many of the impacts from the spill are still going to be,” Martha Collins, an environmental lawyer, told Mongabay.
Read the full story here.
Banner image of pelicans on Queen Bess Island off the coast of Louisiana. Image courtesy of Alisha Renfro.
This story first appeared on Mongabay
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