200 Penguins Die In Brazil Oil Slick

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — More than 200 oil-slicked penguins have washed up dead on the beaches of a popular Brazilian resort, and officials say they are searching for a cause.

Authorities said they have counted nearly 200 dead penguins found on the beaches of the island city of Florianopolis, but people bringing in live penguins covered with oil reported seeing hundreds more dead on the beaches, said Manuela Osorio, a veterinarian with a group caring for the surviving birds.

"We don't know for sure because nobody is keeping tabs of the dead," she said. "What we do know is we have 155 live penguins we are treating for oil intoxication."

Marcelo Duarte of the Santa Catarina state environmental police said nearly 200 washed up since Sunday, and told the Associated Press that the oil probably leaked from a large ship and police say they are trying to determine the culprit.

While it is common in Brazil to find some penguins _ both dead and alive _ swept by strong ocean currents from the Strait of Magellan _ the birds are showing up in greater numbers than most experts can remember.

They also are heading much farther north, with reports of penguins washing up as far away as Rio Grande do Norte state, near the equator.

Some biologists believe stronger-than-usual ocean currents or colder-than-usual ocean temperatures have pulled the birds north. Others suggest overfishing near Patagonia and Antarctica has forced the penguins to swim farther in search of food.

Comments

[johnnyjust]

They don't know where it came from?

Probably here:

http://www.mms.gov/omm/pacific/enviro/seeps1.htm

[mamacat]

In the last few years vast oil fields have been discovered off of Brazil, that is why the stock of PBR (petrobrasil) has skyrocketed. Does anyone really doubt how the penguins are being exposed to oil? Most likely, but admittedly without any proof, the expanding oil industry of Brazil is not too concerned about spills and leaks. The leaks and spills near the U.S. and Europe stand a chance of being reported, but in Brazil all they hear about is the continueing loss of birds.

[sheila]

how many penguins died from rooftop solar panels? right.

so, when can we start factoring in the cost of total ecosystem destruction to the "cost of oil?" while we're at it, we better factor in the cost of the deaths and illness caused by coal (mining plus respiratory diseases from combustion), the cost of global warming, the cost of guarding pipelines, insuring the nuclear industry (courtesy of taxpayers), the cost of depleting aquifers with Concentrating Solar Plants, the cost of bird/bat/insect deaths from gigantic wind farms, the cost of the enormous GHG emissions caused by building and maintaining giant new power lines, and what do you know?

we end up with point of use solutions such as conservation, "net zero" design, efficiency, smart metering, geothermal heat exchange, solar thermal, solar PV and microwind at point of use. Bonus? no more Big Energy hijacking of ratepayers and taxpayers. no more ecosystem deaths for private profits. no more blackouts, fires, and grid instability. no more global warming.

Gee, makes "drill here, drill now" and "the Pickens Plan" sound a little infantile and corrupt, doesn't it?

[ICanHasDemocracy]

So we can expect more of the same from "Responsible" Oil companies that leaked oil into the Mighty Miss and Alaska's coastline?

give us clean burning gas and coal, Frak this oil - I'm converting to gas this fall.

[GraciousWinner]

And where do you think that gas is going to come from?