Dead Sea Turtles, Fish Wash Ashore In Gulf (PHOTOS)

GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) -- At least 20 sea turtles have been found dead this weekend along a 30-mile stretch of Mississippi beaches from Biloxi to Bay St. Louis.

While wildlife officials can't say with certainty the turtles, some endangered, died as a result of the oil spill, the number concerns them.

Moby Solangi, director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport, Miss., said Sunday this is typically the time of year when turtles wash up on shore.

Solangi says even though no oil appears to be on the turtles, they may still have been sickened by consuming oil-coated fish. He says that won't be clear until necropsies are performed on Monday.

Some of the dead reptiles are endangered Kemps ridley turtles.

Below, a series of AP photos showing of dead animals spotted along the beach in Mississippi.

• • • • • • A large drum fish lies washed up on the beach in Long Beach, Miss., Sunday, May 2, 2010. The cause of death is undetermined. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

Comments

[azphoenixwolf]

12:09 PM on 05/06/2010

I hear BP is going to have each turtle sign a contract for $5000 for damages so they can go to the grocery stores and buy bottled water and canned sardines for food. They can stay at Motel 6's and use the swimming pools and live high on the hog until their settlement runs out and then it's back to the tar pits for them!!!

I thought Cleopatra was the Queen of de Nile, but it looks like BP is reigning champion now.

Ya, blame the victim. BP,your 5,000 barrels a day of poison your are dumping into the Gulf every day couldn't possibly hurt couldn't hurt a turtle could it? Their punishment should be for each of them to drink a glass of water with a heaping tablespoon of crude oil added to it to drink every day like those poor GD'ed turtles have to drink every day if it's so harmless as you say. The punishment should fit the crime!!! You should be made to be gas guzzlers like the SUV's you profit from so much.

The Oil Pollution Act of 1990, signed by George H.W. Bush, caps economic damage liability at $75 million with a cap of $1 billion per incident on claims against the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.
We will wind up paying for it.

[azphoenixwolf]

12:05 PM on 05/06/2010

Let me ask a simple question, and the answer should be obvious. What are the turtles going to drink instead of the gulf waters? CAN THEY DRINK ANYTHING BUT THE TOXIC OIL CONTAMINATED WATER. - DO THEY HAVE AN ALTERNATIVE? IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR ONE SINGLE TURTLE NOT TO HAVE OIL IN THEM SINCE THE OIL IS DISPERSED THROUGHOUT THEIR ONLY SOURCE OF WATER - THEIR HOME, THE GULF. How could they not have oil in them if their only drinking water is the contaminated gulf waters they live in. Ya, I'm sure BP gave the turtles spending money so they could go to Dairy Queen and buy Mr. Mistys and to the grocery stores to buy bottled water. Ya, I saw a turtle the other day strolling down the beach drinking bottled water. How about you? What did you see the turtles drinking. Were you at a lounge and saw one ording a scotch on the rocks? What kind of BS blame the victim propaganda is this? Ya, the turtles have conned us. We thought they were in danger and all the time they've been holding out on us and have been buying distilled water at grocery stores. I saw one drinking from a garden hose the other day. What did you see one of those sneaky tutles drinking?. Liar turtles.

[Chazmania]

11:36 PM on 05/03/2010

More justifications to build a pipe line in Afghanistan?
Just a thought!

[Chazmania]

11:24 PM on 05/03/2010

If we destroy the planets Eco system thus our food chain we shall surly die too!
Its as plain and simple as that!
This was more critical to prevent then ignore for individual greed!
Any other justification is plain insanity!

[Francesco Bonazeta]

08:36 PM on 05/03/2010

...bp oil spill... oil spill... oil spill gulf of mexico 2010.... oil spill pictures...

[steve-annie]

07:47 PM on 05/03/2010

TrueMajority.org petition to end offshore oil drilling:

http://act.truemajorityaction.org/p/7002/nodrilling?petition_KEY=163

[Armando Olmos]

04:48 PM on 05/03/2010

Such devastation California will never be the same again as a result of this oil spill. Where's the Secretary of the state of California Debra Bowen Republican on this issue. Allowing British Petroleum, to drill for oil on our shoreline without an acoustic remote control value. She should be held accountable politically for allowing corporations to be unregulated.

[Chazmania]

11:21 PM on 05/03/2010

This one was in the golf of Mexico! not near California! but we have plenty of rigs off our cost too! and they could have the same accident

[Oil spill crisis map]

01:46 PM on 05/03/2010

An Urgent Call For Citizen Reports For Oil Spill Crisis Map!

The Louisiana Bucket Brigade, an environmental health and justice organization has launched the Oil Spill Crisis Map, a tool to document and visualize eyewitness reports of impacts of the Gulf Coast Oil Spill. http://oilspill.labucketbrigade.org/

Reports can be texted to 504-27 27 OIL. Reports can also be sent to [e-mail], through Twitter with the hashtag #BPspillmap and on the map website. http://oilspill.labucketbrigade.org/ Reports must include a description of what you are seeing, smelling, experiencing. Whether it is oil sheens, impacted animals, smells or your livelyhood being threatened, we want to the world to know how the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill is impacting your environment, health and way of life.

Send in reports if you witness the impacts of the spill. We also need people to post reports of the oil spill's effects made by the media. Please visit: http://oilspill.labucketbrigade.org/

[catbyte]

01:16 PM on 05/03/2010

This makes me physically ill. All for the greed of humans--myself included (although I don't own a car). When will we learn?

[PoliSci2008]

03:08 PM on 05/03/2010

I feel ya, it is heartbreaking. When Bush, McCain, Palin & Obama were talking about allowing more offshore drilling, I thought bwtween the greed and the ignorance, they don't know what they're doing. It'll take years for the residue of the oil spill to totaly disappear, and hence, that's why we need an alternative to offshore drilling.

[charon]

01:08 PM on 05/03/2010

Does anyone know where Palin is these days? Is she down helping with the cleanup?

[charon]

12:19 PM on 05/03/2010

This is what Palin was saying just a month ago:

“behind the rhetoric lie new drilling bans and leasing delays; soon to follow are burdensome new environmental regulations. Instead of ‘drill, baby, drill,’ the more you look into this, the more you realize it’s ‘stall, baby, stall,’”

“The president said he’ll ‘consider potential areas for development in the mid- and south Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, while studying and protecting sensitive areas in the Arctic.’”

“As the former governor of one of America’s largest energy-producing states, a state oil and gas commissioner and chair of the nation’s Interstate Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, I’ve seen plenty of such studies. What we need is action — action that results in the job growth and revenue that a robust drilling policy could provide. And let’s not forget that while Interior Department bureaucrats continue to hold up actual offshore drilling from taking place, Russia is moving full steam ahead on Arctic drilling, and China, Russia and Venezuela are buying leases off the coast of Cuba. ...

“I’ve got to call it like I see it. The administration’s sudden interest in offshore drilling is little more than political posturing designed to gain support for job-killing energy legislation soon to come down the pike. I’m confident that GOP senators will not take the bait.”

politico.com, 4-1-10

[Renifer]

10:33 PM on 05/11/2010

So, Palin is worried about jobs for oil workers (some of whom are now dead, 15 in Texas and now 11 in the Gulf) but not jobs for fisherman and shrimpers, and anyone who makes their living in and around the Gulf or on the Mississippi. And she's calling Obama out on being political with drilling? Oh please.... Someone make her drink some crude oil so that she can learn just how toxic it really is, please.

[TFlint]

12:05 PM on 05/03/2010

I hate those posters who just say "Who cares?" but if Sarah Palin was posting here, that's just what she would say. Well, she'd add "that there" and "yup, yup."

[charon]

12:12 PM on 05/03/2010

Oh god you had to bring her up. She's like a crazy lady who laughs while she drags her fingernails across a chalkboard, watching with pleasure while people wince in pain at the sound of her screeching voice. She's a character straight out of a Stephen King novel or something.

[ash613]

11:57 AM on 05/03/2010

Our coastal newspaper for Mississippi is www.sunherald.com - It has more in-depth articles about what is going on along the coastline.

[TFlint]

12:05 PM on 05/03/2010

Pulitzer potential?

[jadamind]

11:56 AM on 05/03/2010

The dolphins, the turtles, the birds - a travesty of gargantuan proportions that no amount of money can alter. NO company should be able to implement anything upon this earth which can cause this kind of damage, without a fool proof, safety insured and routinely checked system.

No more wild profits with minimal safety. Those who count their billions should hang their heads low, was the money worth the tarnishing of your soul, the disrespect to your reputation, and the damage you've done to the earth which your children and grandchildren live? I'm sure the extra couple of bil you'll leave for them when you go on your merry way into oblivion - money they won't even be able to spend in their lifetime - was not worth the damage you caused to countless creatures and families, to make it.

[jadamind]

11:48 AM on 05/03/2010

THIS is why people oppose off shore drilling...get it now pro drillers??

[pennyfarthing]

03:56 PM on 05/03/2010

Unfortunately, as they will argue, THIS is not enough of a reason to stop.