Oil spill, affects wildlife

deisip67 (69)in #steemiteducation • 8 years ago

What do you think when you hear the words oil spill?

You probably have the image of a black and oily layer floating on the surface of the ocean or beaches covered in sticky tar. Most oil spills agree with these descriptions.

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An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially the marine ecosystem, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution.

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Most oil spills occur in the sea, especially near coasts where ecosystems are more diverse.

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The spill of oil is one of the environmental problems of magnitude never before experienced, it is undeniable that the planet has suffered major problems due to pollution from different economic activities, but the oil spill represents one of the biggest crises currently affecting the flora and fauna at the planetary level, so deterioration of the quality of life, as well as in the self-destruction of ecological conditions.

The biggest oil spills

The largest oil spills in tons are the product of oil rig accidents and oil tankers. However the largest of all was intentionally produced in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iran, in the Persian Gulf War on January 23, 1991.
The amount spilled was estimated at 1,770,000 tons. Next in magnitude, the disaster of the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the oil leak of the Deepwater Horizon Platform on April 20, 2010 with an estimated top volume at 594,000 tons.
The Ixtoc I platform spilled 467,000 tons on June 3, 1979 and on March 23, 1980. The worst spill, the result of a tanker accident, was that of the Aegean Captain that collided with the Atlantic Empress, in the Caribbean Sea (Trinidad -Tobago), on July 19, 1979, spilled 287,000 tons.

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One of the damages to the environment is the death of thousands of seabirds.

Have you ever read about the non-living resources of the Earth and what can be done to protect them? But there are also living resources. Among them, thousands of seabirds and other wildlife that are injured or killed as a result of a petroleum spill.

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What can be done to protect them?

In 1988, a relatively small spill on the coast of Washington State caused the deaths of thousands of seabirds.

Luckily, about 4,000 survived long enough to reach the beaches. When these birds, soaked with oil, reached the coast, groups of volunteers waited for them to transport them to emergency treatment centers.
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Here the volunteers, slowly and carefully, washed and dried the birds, trying to remove all traces of oil from their feathers. In spite of the care received, only about 1000 survivors were returned to their environment. And there was no way to know for sure if these birds could survive on their own.

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Scientists are concerned about the consequences that oil spills will have on some species that, like the (Puffinus mauretanicus) Pardela Balear, are in extinction .

Even with modern technology and good intentions, humans can not duplicate the natural survival equipment of an animal. However, they can destroy it with a single careless action.

Scientists propose the use of magnetic cylinders as a method to clean oil spills.

The method has proven to be efficient and less expensive than others. However, it can present difficulties depending on the climate.

This method was proposed by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the year 2012, but it has not yet been put into practice.