Oceana - cause of death http://oceana.org/en/taxonomy/term/1152/0 en Dissecting the Cause of Death in the Gulf http://oceana.org/en/blog/2010/07/dissecting-the-cause-of-death-in-the-gulf <!--?php print $node->links['addthis']['title']; ?--> <div class="blogPhoto teaserPhoto"> <img class="imagefield imagefield-field_photo" width="448" height="300" alt="" src="http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/blog/kemps_ridley_0.jpg?1279216836" /><p class="image-caption">A kemp's ridley sea turtle. &copy; Oceana/Cory Wilson</p> </div> <p>Warning: what follows isn’t exactly light reading.</p> <p>The <em>New York Times</em> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/science/earth/15necropsy.html?ref=science">reported yesterday</a> on the complicated task of performing necropsies -- i.e., animal autopsies -- on <a href="http://na.oceana.org/en/our-work/protect-marine-wildlife/sea-turtles/overview">sea turtles</a> and other creatures that have been found dead in the Gulf of Mexico since the spill started.</p> <p>It’s not easy to determine the cause of death of these creatures. Of the 1,978 birds, 463 turtles and 59 marine mammals <a href="http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/posted/2931/WildLifeConsolidated15JUL2010.784327.pdf">found dead</a> in the Gulf since April 20th, few show visible signs of oil contamination.</p> <p>And in the case of sea turtles, a more familiar culprit may be at fault: shrimp trawls and other commercial fishing gear that scoop up turtles as bycatch and prevent them from going to the surface to breathe.</p> <p>Here’s a simplified breakdown of how the veterinary investigators begin to determine the cause of death:</p> <p><a href="http://oceana.org/en/blog/2010/07/dissecting-the-cause-of-death-in-the-gulf" target="_blank">read more</a></p> autopsies bycatch cause of death dispersants fishing gear gulf oil spill necropsies new york times sea turtles shrimp trawls turtle excluder devices wildlife Bycatch Gulf Oil Spill Response Center Offshore Drilling Oil Pollution Sea Turtles Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:47:14 +0000 Emily Fisher 6476 at http://oceana.org