Monday, May 24, 2010

Oil doesn't just kill, it maims

What can we expect from the Gulf oil disaster? Oil is the pollution that hurts you once, and then keeps on hurting. Just as Nuka, the sea otter oiled in Alaska when she was a newborn pup. She's a swimming example of all the things that can go wrong with a sea otter, or at least most of them.

This story in the Seattle Times describes the woes of an oiled sea otter pup 20 years later and a whole array of other harms caused by oil, in addition to the obvious bad feather days it causes for the highly visible oiled birds. Oiled eggs, oiled food, etc. Stay tuned, we'll be hearing about these effects for a long time.

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