What the Seabird is to Marine Ecology

Seabirds are an integral part of ocean balance and are being jeopardized by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Shortsighted business demands that human beings profit from the products under the ocean floor whether or not nature stays intact. What it is doing is cutting off your right arm because all of human life is dependent on nature being in balance.

Seabirds, when healthy, maintain a body temperature two degrees higher than normal human body temperature -- 41 degrees Celsius. To the birds, their natural protective layer would be like human beings wearing a parka or a heavily insulated diving suit. They are protected when swimming or diving in the cold waters by their own waterproofing. If oil from a super tanker oil spill coats their feathers, it tears away the temperature protection. To maintain its body temperature it then has to burn body fat, birds are not that fat, and it ultimately leads to a tragic death from hypothermia.

If this tragedy that has happened to pelicans and many seabirds were to occur to a human being it would be like being stripped of clothing in the arctic and dipped in oil, and being left to shiver and die alone or even with babies, among the rocks, away from home, being washed up ashore and not even buried. Seabirds are deserving of respect for the service they do for humankind and that we did not create them and that they are here for reasons even beyond our understanding. Seabirds are part of the mechanisms that keep the sea balanced and clean.

The offshore drilling contaminates the natural order of things. By drilling wells below the sea floor and then subsequently spilling it all over the place even if it just one freak accident that goes on months and then takes years to clean up, we risk upsetting the natural order of how birds, fish, whales, algae, and plankton operate to keep a clean ocean. The creatures that live in the ocean, do so for a purpose. Since 70% of the planet is made up of ocean, we have a duty to keep it clean and to maintain the life that keeps it clean by refraining from drilling underwater and by supporting sealife. If we contaminate the ocean so that it cannot evaporate properly, what we will likely do is upset the global weather patterns.

We think oil and gas exploration are so important to the economy are so important to the economy, well, what about the weather? If the weather suddenly dumped snow on an Orange grove, it would put the grower out of business. A painter or builder who got hit with lightning and hail, or even snow, during building season would be in dire financial straits. A grower of strawberries, lettuce, canteloupes, and watermelons, what would he do if the weather suddenly changed and August which was his hot month for ripening melons made hail instead? If Canadian ski slopes, or Swiss Alps ski slopes melted off abruptly with extremely hot temperatures, what would happen to their business?

Let's talk business: it's poor business strategy to drill underwater especially when the leak takes so long to cap. Think of the humans affected even if you don't think of the birds. But what if you were that pelican soaked in oil, dripping, wet, and cold, suffering. What if that were you? What if you needed to get to work to the ocean and your fur parka was your fuel so that you would not get cold? Is our need for fuel so vast that we need to kill nature in the process? How can we change the need for fuel to a need for clean energy?

Sources

1. http://www.greenpeace.org/
2. http://www.earthjustice.org/
3. http://www.hww.ca/hww2.asp?id=229&cid=4