NRDC Goes to Court: Sperm Whales vs. BP
Posted July 2, 2010 in Reviving the World's Oceans, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
A few months ago, as oil began to gush from the wellhead and it had become clear to all but BP’s Tony Hayward that we had a major environmental disaster on our hands, I blogged about the Gulf’s small population of sperm whales.
I was particularly concerned about the sperm whales because BP's oil happened to be gushing directly into their neighborhood. For more than one hundred years, mothers and calves have congregated in the Mississippi Canyon, a large submarine valley that extends south into the ocean from the Mississippi Delta. Male whales like to range across the northern Gulf, but for mothers and calves the canyon is prime nursing habitat, and they’re not often seen outside of it. Now their home is encompassed by oil; one young animal has already been found floating dead in the water (a rare find); and the government is launching a special research cruise to find out what is happening to them and to another small, imperiled population of whales to their east.
NRDC has been working over the past weeks to improve the science essential to helping the population recover. But we are also seeking to reverse the oil-mad policies that led to this mess in the first place and that continue to doom the sperm whales and every other species in the industrialized Gulf.
One policy that must be changed is the government’s astonishing disregard of its own wildlife laws. Each year the Interior Department approves hundreds of drilling plans and exploration permits for the northern Gulf without taking step one to comply with the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act. These laws are important because they require the government and industry to take every practicable measure to reduce harm to wildlife. In the Mississippi Canyon, this could well have meant capping the sperm whales’ exposure to seismic blasting and taking additional precautions against the risk of an oil spill in their nursery.
This week, we filed the first of several lawsuits to restore the rule of wildlife law in the region. We began by challenging the government’s free-wheeling approach to seismic surveys—what my colleague Cynthia Sarthou, from the Gulf Restoration Network, calls “Exhibit B in how the Gulf of Mexico is suffering from the abuses of the oil industry.”
To search for deep deposits of oil, industry trolls the ocean with high-powered airguns that, for weeks and months on end, regularly pound the water with sound louder than virtually any other man-made source save explosives. These surveys have a vast environmental footprint (see fact sheet here), disrupting feeding, breeding, and communication of some endangered species over literally hundreds of thousands of square miles. For the Gulf’s sperm whales, they mean less food: even moderate levels of airgun noise appear to seriously compromise the whales' ability to forage.
Since January, the Interior Department approved nine of these surveys in the same Mississippi Canyon that the sperm whales need for their survival—all without complying in the most fundamental ways with our environmental laws. It is intolerable to think that the same animals now dying in the massive spill will have to contend in the brave new world that follows with the industry’s constant pounding, without any serious attempt to mitigate the harm.
This must stop. Look for more to come.
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Comments
Hugh — Jul 2 2010 01:00 PM
If the Whales die we will die..I have been a fan of save the whales for over 50 years..
Why has it taken over 50 Plus years to stop the greed of Killers of life for Monetary reasons.....Does our world think that the thinking man is all that matters...That only money matters.....Life Matters...without life we have nothing......
pamela.vitale — Jul 2 2010 01:21 PM
I am crying over this please we need to stop killing innocent creatures...
DYAN KANE — Jul 2 2010 01:56 PM
Human EGO and GREED, combined with huge PAYOFFS wins out over the care and concern for nature and wildlife. The spirit of those of us who are heartbroken over the rape of the earth for political and monetary gain is low. We identify with the whales, their babies, the dolphins - all innocent life born to this planet without concern about guns, religion, law, money. HUMANS are the scourge of the earth. Why can't all conservationists and scientists ban together under one powerful worldwide umbrella, so that WE TOO can lobby gov't officials to swing OUR WAY? They are mere puppets, being paid by HUGE CORPORATE INTERESTS. The meek are the ones who suffer. The U.S. is becoming a "3rd World Country", for what the Int'l big business has done for decades in "3rd World Countries", they are now doing it here (strip mining, big oil, frakking) and destroying habitat in the meantime. WHEN WILL WE ALL UNITE AND FIGHT AGAINST THESE CORPORATE MONSTERS???
Jen M. — Jul 2 2010 01:57 PM
GOOD FOR YOU TO FILE THESE LAWSUITS!!! On behalf of the Whales-THANK YOU!!! I wish you the best success in the law suits, keep sticking up for the beautiful whales...
Darren — Jul 2 2010 02:08 PM
Dr. Masaru Emoto, the scientist from Japan who has done all the research and publications about the characteristics of water and how, among other things, water physically responds to emotions, has proposed a prayer for the Gulf situation.
Right now, many of us have the predominantly angry emotion when we consider what is happening in the Gulf. ... See moreAnd while that emotion maybe justified, we may be of greater assistance to our planet and its life forms, if we sincerely, powerfully and humbly pray the prayer that Dr Emoto, himself, has proposed.
"I send the energy of love and gratitude to the water and all the living creatures in the Gulf of Mexico and its surroundings. To the whales, dolphins, pelicans, fish, shellfish, planktons, corals, algae and all living creatures.....
I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you."
We are powerful. Our united energy, speaking this prayer daily...multiple times daily....can literally shift the balance of destruction that is happening.
We don't have to know how......we just have to recognize that the power of love is greater than any power active in the Universe today.
Please join us in repeating this healing prayer of Dr. Emoto's.
And feel free to copy and paste this in to a new email to send it around the planet.
Robert — Jul 2 2010 04:40 PM
Thank you so much for enlightening the public about this!
Namaste~
RP Winston
Kathryn Atkins — Jul 2 2010 05:24 PM
If you need signatures, I'll sign and get more...
I am beyond trying to understand why this spill is happening... Why were there NOT contingency plans in place? Why are they trying to figure out how to stop this catastrophe AFTER the fact? If they didn't have them, they should have never been allowed to drill.
Mary Evans — Jul 9 2010 10:44 AM
I am a junior environmental science major at the University of Maryland. I think that the public in general is not educated about ways they can stand up against big business and government policy. I know I am not.
There are so many people who care but why are we, the public, not fighting industry and government policy? Are there politics that I should be involved in or should I just continue to live my own life sustainably in hopes that other people will eventually join me? How can I help do my part to get the government on our side? I know voting is important, but I never got to vote for or against drilling in the gulf. What is the most effective way for people way for people like me to get involved in this movement?
Derek Porter, LA/CA — Jul 9 2010 11:07 PM
All these comments are great. If we are to stop this kind of destruction, utter madness and total disregard for anything but money we must vote in representatives that represent the people and not the special interests. Without fundamental change of this sort we will continue to live in a world dominated by a small cabal of special interest. Back in 1776, among other equally important things, WE declared the following:
"...That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of [We the People]; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present [political system: both democrats and republicans] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over [We the People]...."
I am certain that many who may read this may conclude that I am paranoid and/or way off point. I love this country and would defend it against any enemy, foreign or domestic. It is because of this love and the current state of affairs that I firmly believe that unless these fundamental changes occur we will continue to be under the subjugation of the "powers that be." The status quo will remain the same.
Stick your heads out the window and yell: "I'm mad as hell and I am not going to take this shit any more," then go out and elect someone (Not a republican or democrat) who will join other similiarly elected representatives who will bring about a new United States of America.
Rebecca Montena — Jul 10 2010 04:20 PM
To me, There is no excuse for this disaster to begin with. This country should have been weaned off oil long ago. For that matter, Coal should have been right behind it or maybe before it.
Why are we still so addicted to these two biggest Carbon producers? How many of these "accidents" will have to take place before we realize that this country has no business in that business? And, they want to drill in Alaska? If our government allows this or anywhere else on our shores, or off shores, they are crazy !!!!
If at some point we actually begin using greener energy, manufacture vehicles that run absent of using fossil fuels.
Hey, one place that using the Cooking Oils that fast food restaurants use, Might help instead of hurt our citizens By adding something positive instead of raising our cholesterol and fat content in our diets Check this out: mcdonalds.com and research this trend. A friend of mine has informed me that there are McDonalds in his city, Phoenix, AZ, that are already doing this process.