The oil spill aftermath

Massive fish kills seem to happen more frequently and be much larger than usual, and since they occur in areas of the Gulf of Mexico that were soaked in oil, the BP oil spill is clearly to blame, no matter how hard they spin it.

Look at this picture:

It looks like the cracked pavement of some road, but it’s really millions of dead fish.

From Mother Nature Network:

In the South, the local news is packed with firsthand accounts of fisherman pulling in nets of dead, oil-soaked crabs, recreational boaters bumping into dead dolphins, and (pictured above) massive fish kills that extend as far as the eye can see.

The fish kill in Bayou Chaland last week occurred only days after an oil-soaked tide hit the marshes, but the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries declared that there is no connection, and that the kill resulted from unseasonably warm weather.

The thing is, its always unseasonably warm in Louisiana in September. And while government officials are quick to point out that fish kills are common in Louisiana, none of those officials would deny the unusual characteristics of this event.

Fish kills, when they happen, generally consist of a hundred or so of one particular species. In this kill the numbers are in the millions, consisting of nearly every known species — from crabs and stingrays to eels and myriad fish species. Even a dead sperm whale (from a resident population that was said to have lived near the Macondo Well location) was found in the water.

BP and the government officials who seem to be covering for them would have us believe that the worst of the oil spill is over, but it doesn't take a genius to put two and two together. It will be decades before the marsh ecosystems of Louisiana will truly recover. So let's stop pretending it's not BP's fault.

From Fox8Live.com:

After the discovery of more dead fish in Plaquemines parish, the third in a week, parish president Billy Nungesser is demanding federal involvement when it comes to testing the waters in the parish hit by heavy oil.

"This whole area yesterday was full of dead fish, you can see now with the tide moving, they're moving around and being put in other places, But I mean it's causing us some concern about the number of fish that are turning up out here dead, and the frequency of that," said P.J. Hahn.

P.J. says fish kills are normal during this time of the year. What's not normal is how frequent swaths of dead fish are turning up, in area's once heavily oiled. Square miles of dead fish.

"Now millions of dead fish that have turned up in the area, and a variety: catfish, redfish, speckled trout we saw, it's just a number of varieties of fish," said Hahn.

The fish kill in Bayou Robinson is not too far from the previous two in Bay Joe Wise and Bay Chaland, and even though Wild Life and Fisheries has blamed the other fish kills on low tides and high temperatures, causing low oxygen levels, the parish still questions whether they could be related to the oil spill.

Something tells me we’ll hear countless more stories like these in the coming years.