FEATURED ESSAYS 1. Preserving Our Earth 2. Oil Pollution And Its Effect On W... 3. Myths About South Africa 4. Kruger National Park 5. Pollution Control: Costs And Bene... 6. Air Pollution 7. National Wildlife Federation 8. Oil Spills And Pollution 9. Plastic Not Paper 10. Technology The End Of Mankind 11. The Greenhouse Effect 12. Pollution Getting The Best Of 13. Ocean Pollution In The Third Worl... 14. Chinook Salmon

Oil Pollution and Its Effect on Wildlife

"OIL POLLUTION AND ITS EFFECT ON WILDLIFE"

INTRODUCTION:
    Contamination of the oceans by oil spillage is not a rare occurrence.
    It is happening all over the world every day, fouling coastlines,
    killing animals and destroying fisheries.

BODY:
        In 1987, more than 3.5 million tons of oil were released into the
    oceans around the world.  Out of that only 28 percent of the spillage
    was accidental; the remaining 72 percent was deliberate, illegal
    actions.

    The sources of oil spillage were:
    Washing tanks at sea:
        A lot of the illegal pollution is caused by cleaning of
        oil tanks at sea.  After they are cleaned the tankers then
        dump the polluted water, mixed with all the oil residue,
        back into the ocean.

    Oil well blowouts:
        Blowouts occurring at oil well heads release huge amounts
        of oil and gas into the ocean.  The drilling vessel IXTOTI
        released more than 400,000 tons of oil into the Gulf of
        mexico over a period of 9 months after its well exploded
        in 1978.

úúúúTanker accidents:
        The most publicized of the oil spills are those caused by tanker
        accidents.  There have been hundreds of accidents involving the
        spilling of million of tons of oil. Big oil spills, no matter
        what way they occur, reflect on the oil industry badly.
        The clean©up cost alone is enormous, and the amount of damages can
        be into the millions of dollars.  Despite the clean©up efforts,
        once there is an oil spill, it cannot be prevented from causing
        major damage to wildlife and the environment.

EFFECT ON WILDLIFE:
    All the migrating seabirds like guillemots, puffins, and razorbills are
at risk from oil pollution.  During migration, they look for calm water
where they rest and fish.  Oil©covered seas look calm to birds, and they
land on the water by thousands, only to be trapped in the oil and die of
starvation.  The birds that don't become trapped usually die as well from
trying to remove the oil from their feathers, the birds ingest the oil and
that usually kills them in a few days. The oil that washes to shore on the
beaches where seals and sea lion breed harm these animals as well, any
animals that get caught in the oil usually die.  An area that is rich in
wildlife is Alaska's Prince William Sound.  When the Exxon Valdez had it's
spill thousands of sea otters died and lot's more are still at risk.  When
the oil coats their fur, otters can't swim or maintain there body
temperature, they either freeze to death, or drown.  When a marine animal
dies it is usually eaten by other species and then those species get
poisoned too.

CLEANING UP:
    Crude oil is complex, it is mixed with more than a 1000 different
chemicals.  In most seas, the highly toxic light hydrocarbons, which are
refined to gasoline and jet fuel, soon evaporate, lower the risk to some
marine life.  As in the Artic it is freezing and the process of evaporation
is slow because of the low temperature.  In these conditions the oil must
be burned.  In calm waters, floating booms can contain the oil so that it
can be pumped off the surface of the sea into holding tanks.  They remove
what they can and the remaining oil is sprayed with chemicals.  These
chemicals break down the oil into tiny particles, which than get broken
down by bacteria which feed on some of the hydrocarbons in the oil.  Yet
the residue will eventually end up on the beaches.

CONCLUSION:
    Most of the worst oil pollution is caused by the cleaning of ships oil
storage tanks at sea.  If they had stricter policies dealing with this
activity this may be avoided.  Every year, a large amount of oil is spilled
throughout the North Sea through the dumping of petroleum products, both on
land and in the sea.  A lot of oil is released by sewers and rivers.  We
can help and reduce oil pollution by returning used motor oil for recycling
rather than pouring it down the drain or burying it in the yard.