Oil spilled in Gulf of Mexico causes heart problems in developing tuna

There’s more bad news about the effects of oil spills on warm-water predators, including Atlantic bluefin tuna, already one of the most threatened fish in the seas.

Oil spills such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico may cause serious heart defects in developing fish embryos, according to a study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The release of more than 4 million barrels of oil between April and July 2010 coincided with the spawning window for commercially and ecologically important species such as bluefin and yellowfin tunas, mahi mahi, Spanish mackerels and blue marlin.

Much of that oil rose from the wellhead on the ocean floor to the surface, potentially exposing buoyant and rapidly developing fish embryos and larvae to toxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs.

In the laboratory, the researchers found that embryos of bluefin tuna, yellowfin tuna and amberjack exposed to field-collected Deepwater Horizon oil samples suffered defects in heart development resulting in irregular heartbeat, circulatory disruption and pericardial fluid accumulation.

The defects occurred in the fish at PAH concentrations of one to 15 parts per billion -- lower than those measured in samples collected from the upper water column of the northern Gulf of Mexico during the spill.

“Losses of early life stages were therefore likely for Gulf populations of tunas, amberjack, swordfish, billfish and other large predators that spawned in oiled surface habitats,” the study says.

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-tuna-larvae-oil-spill-toxins-20140324,0,3256025.story?track=rss

There seems to be a distinct interest in burying this type of news, too.
 

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Galveston Oil Spill Threatening Crucial Bird Refuge

Though smaller than the 2010 Gulf spill, the oil could harm birds.

The spill occurred when the barge collided with a ship in the Houston Ship Channel near Texas City, on the western coast of Galveston Bay.

The area is about 8 miles (13 kilometers) from the Bolivar Peninsula, which is home to the Bolivar Flats Shorebird Sanctuary, a preserved area of marshy mudflats that's home to a variety of geese, ducks, herons, and other waterbirds.

The government's cleanup efforts began immediately, with 24 response vessels working to skim the oil and to stop the leak from the damaged barge, which was carrying more than 900,000 gallons (3.4 million liters) of oil.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140324-galveston-bay-birds-oil-spill-animals-science/

Being that all the fish mentioned are long lived and therefore spawn multiple times over many years, then the problems of malformed embryos should be self limiting. Providing the absorption of chemicals by the adults is not causing malformed embryos....who will know? Just more of the same destruction caused by "progress".

And now BP has once again caused an environmental disaster when it's newly modified and modernized tar sand refinery dumped (their estimate) 16000 + gallons of oil into Lake Michigan. Yup, let us allow more drilling in environmentally sensitive areas.