Oil spill’s animal victims struggle as experts fear a mounting toll
I read a transcript today of Rush Limbaugh saying this:
The ocean will take care of this on its own if it was left alone and left out there. It’s natural. It’s as natural as the ocean water is.
Rush needs to head on down to Grand Isle, and drink himself a glass of slicked seawater. That would show us all that his words aren’t just stupid macho-grandstanding. Arsenic is natural too. That doesn’t mean that a whole frigging lot of it in the wrong place is a good thing, you meathead.
In nature, oil is a versatile killer. It smothers the tiny animals that make up a coral reef. It suffocates blades of marsh grass, cutting them off from air and sunlight. It clumps up a bird’s feathers, leaving it unable to fly; then, trying to remove the oil, birds swallow it.
For now, scientists are seeing the worst effects only in one corner of the Louisiana coast.
But they’re concerned about what they’re not seeing — and worried that the impact on animals and plants will only get worse.