June 8, 2010 – Over the last few days, from East Grand Terre Island, Queen Bess Island and Cat Island to Grand Isle, photographers have shown the world in vivid detail what's really happening to the brown pelicans of Louisiana, just a part of the environmental impact spreading across the Gulf of Mexico. Today, from several places around that same area in Barataria Bay come new photographs of more brown pelicans in peril, but now oiled terns, laughing gulls, a turtle and one little fish join this sad parade of victims harmed or killed by the BP oil spill disaster.
Even as thousands of barrels of oil are contained and brought to the surface, thousands more continue to gush into the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. That oil makes its way to the waters and wetlands of Louisiana each day, spoiling the nesting grounds and habitat of this fragile environment that has historically been so vital ecologically and economically to the state and the nation.
These particular pictures are most troubling because they portray the leading edge of what is to come. When a few oil-tinged terns and gulls can be photographed, the real damage is out of sight, perhaps already swallowed by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico or buried in the wetlands. The pictures of one dead turtle and one small fish floating on heavy layers of thick oil symbolize the countless numbers of their kind and other species that are hidden away from the camera lens.
Now called America's worst environmental disaster, the BP Deepwater Horizon "oil spill" is causing devastation far greater than the EXXON Valdez catastrophe in Alaska.
The AP video below shows one bright spot in dark picture for wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico. Some of the rescued brown pelicans, both adults and chicks are given a new lease on life.
More slide shows and videos:
Gulf oil spill impact pictures: Cat Island brown pelican chicks, struggle for birds on Grand Isle
Gulf oil spill: Environmental impact, East Grand Terre Island, brown pelicans struggle (pictures)
Gulf oil spill: Environmental impact in pictures, the plight of Queen Bess Island, brown pelicans
Gulf oil spill: What's at risk? Breton National Wildlife Refuge, Teddy Roosevelt visits (video)
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