Wildlife Goes First

We started finding the corpses.

Pitiful, helpless birds washing up. An hour west of me. In the bays and harbors of Louisiana. Nothing most folk can do. Except find them and report them. Apparently, volunteers aren't supposed to do ANYTHING with wildlife, without being trained and certified to do it. Not that I'd dip gunked-up avians in Palmolive, but how about making some training and certification available to us so we can put a stop to their suffering?

Then, in Pass Christian, MS, just 15 minutes west, the dead sea turtles. None are covered in crude. No apparent physical damage, either. But they are most definitely dead. Perhaps food poisoning? Or something in their lungs? I'm no marine biologist, but the timing of these deaths is uncanny. If it isn't due to fallout from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, I'll be stunned.

Poisoning the environment is one thing. Coating our beaches in a grim layer of raw crude is another another thing. But being responsible for the slow, miserable death of hundreds upon thousands upon millions of innocent animals is not only unforgivably offensive but (hopefully) criminal.

And it is only just starting.