How Oil Spills Affect Humans
...rine life in three different ways, by poising after ingestion, by direct contact and by destroying habitats. (Baird 2) The range of endangered animals encompasses innumerable wildlife. Sea birds appear to be the most frequent victims of maritime oil spills but mammals such as seals, whales, dolphins, and dugong and reptiles like was turtles may also be impacted during spills. (Gilbert 14) Sea birds have a high risk of contact to spilled oil due to the amount of time they spend on or near the surface of the sea and on oil affected foreshores. (Gilbert 3) Birds cannot distinguish between clean water and an oil slick. (CQ Researcher) When birds land on the oil there feathers become covered in oil removing their air pockets that help keep them afloat. The birds that do not drown often die due to the ingesting of the toxic substance as they try and clean their feathers. For instance, the fiddler crabs, mussels and other such sea life are a few suffering from oil pollution in the ocean. Since the study was done in the 1970s, fiddler crabs have still had problems physiologically and behaviorally because of oil spills. They have had impairment in their ability to excavate burrows in the sea floor that is crucial to their survival. (Drew 2) Furthering the damage was the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. In Alaska, the 1989 grounding of the supertanker Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound caused the worst U.S. oil spill ever and prompted Congress to pass stringent oil-pollution legislation. (Cooper 1) Thousands of animals died on the first day. (Schouweiler 7) Sea otters and sea ducks that developed their habitat in and around Prince Edward Island were plagued by the mussels they preyed on as well as the tainted water. The presence of the oil particles in the water produced a decline in their population. (Drew 6) The most damaged species was the pink salmon that have the highest number of habitants in the Sound of Prince Edward Island. In the aftermath of the oil spill, where there once was an abundant amount of pink salmon that flourished within the streams, biologists did not retrieve a single egg when they visited Nevertheless, the body count of this disaster was immense. The quantity of life lost impacted the ecosystems around Prince Edward Island tremendously. The survival rate, after all the money was spent by the corporation, resulted in less than fifty percent of the animals that continued to live. In July 1990, the Valdez repaired at a cost of thirty million dollars. (Keeble 260) This type of injustice needs to be addressed in a serious matter to sustain the indispensable viability of all life on the planet. On March 18, 1967, the American owned, British chartered oil tanker Torrey Canyon, went aground off the shores of Cornwall. Within four days, the oil gushing from the stricken vessel formed a blanket thirty miles long. Eight days later, the oil was eighteen inches thick on many beaches. (Petrow 257) Chairman, of the Cornwall Bird Watching, Charles Combee, estimated the total number killed at a minimum of twenty five thousand. It may easily been twice that number. ( Petrow 137) Torrey Canyon measured exactly nine hundred seventy four feet and five inches from stem to stern. (Cowan 8) The Torrey Canyon was the biggest ship ever lost, carried the most cargo ever lost, caused the most environmental damage. (Potter 2,3,) “For many centuries humanity has seen the sea as an infinite source of food and a tireless sustained of pollutants. It isn’t.” (Wilder, Tegner and Dayton 1) Even though there are numerous amounts of damage inflicted on wildlife with oil spills, many believe they are harmless due to the amount of wildlife in the world. The vast arrays of uncountable species which occupy the world--mostly in Earth’s waters, with humans are hardly affected by oil spills, some proclaim. Therefore, when one part of it is affected it can cause a domino effect ending many lives. The escalation of the loss in marine life will take away from fisheries, which provide us with our seafood, reducing them to little fishing because of the lack of fish to fish from. Then the fisheries will continue on down the food chain to a lower fish that are not predators, in the food chain, just to worsen the problem. This will result in the weakening of the ecosystem’s ability to recover inducing an imbalance in the amount of marine diversity producing a decline in predators. (Wilder, Tegner, and Dayton 1) Yet the damage goes deeper into that which gave humans life-- water. So to quote an educated man, Billy Wilson, the director of Phi Theta Kappa honors program, in the undermining of the feeble minds who do not realize the crisis that may a wait for humans, Water nourishes all life on earth, providing the power for perpetual regeneration and even rebirth. From prehistoric times water has been linked with fertility, both for humanity and for the earth. To ancient people the universe appeared to be an organic whole: the Sumerian [a] is the symbol for water, sperm, conception, and generation. In the Mesopotamian carvings, both water and fish are emblems of fertility. Even today, the Pima Indians of New Mexico tell the story of the beautiful Mother Earth becoming pregnant when a drop of water fell upon her from a cloud. Therefore, if the water that gave us life is tainted by oil spills the fact would be that it affects human life. Human life is affected by the killing off of many species and putting some on the verge of extinction, but most importantly it is harming the source from which life was created. Water is essential to all life on the planet and without it the many forms of life that reside in the world would not survive. Crude oil contains thousands of different chemical compounds. (Keeble 197) When oil spills and mixes with water it can contami...