Whale sharks and the oil spill...

Roy Elal 7B

29/9/10

Today I will talk about the oil spill and the effects on the whale sharks by it.

This article was mostly about the Whale sharks, the gulf oil spill stopped an important part of the whale sharks' feeding habitat, unfortunately leading to a chance of some of the world's largest fish to die, as modern studies suggest. The amount of oil that was spilled is about 4.9 million barrels of oil (each barrel carrying 159 liters of oil) which were spilled into an area south of the Mississippi River Delta, where 1/3 of all the northern gulf of mexico Whale shark sightings have happened in the past, scientists claim. The 14-meter long fish is still a big mystery to scientists, it is considered a vulnerable species by the "International Union for Conservation of Nature." "The spill's impact came at the worst possible time and in the worst possible location for whale sharks," claimed the biologist Eric Hoffmayer, who studies whale sharks at the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Coast Research Laboratory. The oil may have clogged the fish' gills, choking them, OR it might harm their prey. "We've seen aerial photos with animals within a few miles of the wellhead and swimming in thick oil," said Hoffmayer, a National Geographic Society Waitt grantee. "At the end of the day, if these animals were feeding in an area where there was surface oil, and if they ingested oil, there is a good possibility that they died and sank to the bottom. At this point we have no idea how many animals have been impacted." Very fortunately for us, and especially the Whale sharks, there are no sharks that are noted dead until now. Although alot of the gulf oil has vanished from the surface of the water, but the spill is staying there and is not going away, and scientists are still trying to uncover the range of its invisible result on the gulf wildlife. A difficulty there is with making the clean-up, is that the chemical dispersant used during the cleanup, which could cause long-term problems for the whale sharks and lots of other species. Whale sharks filter alot through their mouths and gills, almost 605,000 liters of water per hour, while they feed on the tiny plankton and fish. The whale sharks swim around with their mouths open to suck in the plankton's rich liquids, which they can make go out their gills, keeping only tiny chunks of food. "They would no doubt absorb contaminants even in dispersed form. Does that build up in their tissues and affect their health?" said biologist Bob Hueter, director of the Center for Shark Research at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida. To answer that question,lots of scientists are searching if there is any polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and other oil contaminants in the the blood and tissues of the Gulf Whale shark.

All-in-all, my conclusion for this article is; that us, people, should stop polluting the 75% of our beautiful planet Earth with oil, or anything else. I think that if we keep polluting the waters that sooner and sooner, more and more animals, such as; The Whale shark, or just any other shark, or fish, or even bacteria. I enjoyed reading this article because it talked about something very critical, which i didnt really see on the news (TV). It definetely made me, a better human, because i learned not to pollute, or at least try not to pollute our beautiful planet Earth.

"It will probably take years to see what the signature of this oil does to the health and

physiology of these animals," Hueter said.

Bibliography:

Handwerk, Brian. "Whale Sharks Killed, Displaced Due to Gulf Oil?" Daily Nature and Science News and Headlines | National Geographic News. 24 Sept. 2010. Web. 29 Sept. 2010. .