Dr. Lopez is a faculty member of the Universidad Autonoma de Oaxaca Benito Juarez and a clinical veterinarian/scientist at the Centro Mexicana de la Tortuga in Mazunte, Oaxaca, Mexico. In addition to his clinical and teaching duties, he has managed to run an iguana hatchery, where he raises from 1000 to 3000 green and black iguanas annually, and runs a sea turtle protection camp at Palmerito. Dr. Lopez spends approximately 75% of his own salary to maintain these projects.

The ARAV, after considering the urgent need, has provided $1000 in emergency funding. But you as an individual member may also wish to contribute to the support of this somewhat unique conservation project. The ARAV will match your contributions up to a total of $500. So if you would like to provide support, please send your contribution check made out to ARAV restricted for Palmarito Turtle Camp to the address below. We will arrange for the transfer to Dr. Lopez. Thanks for your consideration. W. B. Amand, VMD

Wilbur B. Amand, VMD/Exec. Dir. / ARAV/Managing Editor / JHMS
721 Inverness Drive/West Chester, PA 19380/610-696-2347
610-696-2348 (fax)/610-764-7030 (cell)/E-mail: ARAVETS

NEW ORLEANS – The gooey oil washing into the maze of marshes along the Gulf Coast could prove impossible to remove, leaving a toxic stew lethal to fish and wildlife, government officials and independent scientists said.

Officials are considering some drastic and risky solutions: They could set the wetlands on fire or flood areas in hopes of floating out the oil.

They warn an aggressive cleanup could ruin the marshes and do more harm than good. The only viable option for many impacted areas is to do nothing and let nature break down the spill.

More than 50 miles of Louisiana’s delicate shoreline already have been soiled by the massive slick unleashed after the Deepwater Horizon rig burned and sank last month. Officials fear oil eventually could invade wetlands and beaches from Texas to Florida. Louisiana is expected to be hit hardest.

On Saturday, a major pelican rookery was awash in oil off Louisiana’s coast. Hundreds of birds nest on the island, and an Associated Press photographer saw some birds and their eggs stained with the ooze. Nests were perched in mangroves directly above patches of crude.

Plaquemines Parish workers put booms around the island, but puddles of oil were inside the barrier.

“Oil in the marshes is the worst-case scenario,” said Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the head of the federal effort to contain and clean up the spill.

Also Saturday, BP told federal regulators it plans to continue using a contentious chemical dispersant, despite orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to look for less toxic alternatives. BP said in a letter to the EPA that Corexit 9500 “remains the best option for subsea application.”

The EPA didn’t immediately comment on BP’s decision.

Oil that has rolled into shoreline wetlands coats the stalks and leaves of plants such as roseau cane – the fabric that holds together an ecosystem that is essential to the region’s fishing industry and a much-needed buffer against Gulf hurricanes. Soon, oil will smother those plants and choke off their supply of air and nutrients.

In some eddies and protected inlets, the ochre-colored crude has pooled beneath the water’s surface, forming clumps several inches deep.

With the seafloor leak still gushing at least hundreds of thousands of gallons a day, the damage is only getting worse. Millions of gallons already have leaked so far.

Coast Guard officials said the spill’s impact now stretches across a 150-mile swath, from Dauphin Island, Ala. to Grand Isle, La.

Over time, experts say weather and natural microbes will break down most of the oil. However, the crude will surely poison plants and wildlife in the months – even years – it will take for the syrupy muck to dissipate.

Back in 1989, crews fighting the Exxon Valdez tanker spill – which unleashed almost 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound – used pressure hoses and rakes to clean the shores. The Gulf Coast is just too fragile for that: those tactics could blast apart the peat-like soils that hold the marshes together.

Hundreds of miles of bayous and man-made canals crisscross the coast’s exterior, offering numerous entry points for the crude. Access is difficult and time-intensive, even in the best of circumstances.

“Just the compaction of humanity bringing equipment in, walking on them, will kill them,” said David White, a wetlands ecologist from Loyola University in New Orleans.

Marshes offer a vital line of defense against Gulf storms, blunting their fury before they hit populated areas. Louisiana and the federal government have spent hundreds of millions of dollars rebuilding barriers that were wiped out by hurricanes, notably Katrina in 2005.

They also act as nursery grounds for shrimp, crabs, oysters – the backbone of the region’s fishing industry. Hundreds of thousands of migratory birds nest in the wetlands’ inner reaches, a complex network of bayous, bays and man-made canals.

To keep oil from pushing deep into Louisiana’s marshes, Gov. Bobby Jindal and officials from several coastal parishes want permission to erect a $350 million network of sand berms linking the state’s barrier islands and headlands.

That plan is awaiting approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

After surveying oil-stricken areas Saturday, Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said the berms were the marshes’ last hope.

“It’s getting in between all the cane and it’s working through from one bayou to the next,” he said.

Smaller spills have been occurring in the marshes for decades. In the past, cleanup crews would sometimes slice out oiled vegetation and take it to a landfill, said Andy Nyman with Louisiana State University.

But with the plants gone, water from the gulf would roll in and wash away the roots, turning wetlands to open water.

Adm. Allen said that where conditions are right, crews could set fire to oil-coated plants.

Nyman and other experts, though, warn it’s tricky. If the marsh is too wet, the oil won’t burn. Too dry, the roots burn and the marsh can be ruined.

BP PLC – which leased the sunken rig and is responsible for the cleanup – said Saturday that cleanup crews have started more direct cleanup methods along Pass a Loutre in Plaquemines Parish. Shallow water skimmers were attempting to remove the oil from the top of the marsh.

Streams of water could later be used in a bid to wash oil from between cane stalks.

In other cases, the company will rely on “bioremediation” – letting oil-eating microbes do the work.

“Nature has a way of helping the situation,” said BP spokesman John Curry.

But Nyman said the dispersants could slow the microbes from breaking down the oil.

White, the Loyola scientist, predicted at least short-term ruin for some of the wetlands he’s been studying for three decades. Under a worst-case scenario, he said the damage could exceed the 217 square miles of wetlands lost during the 2005 hurricane season.

“When I say that my stomach turns,” he said.Posted byJon Downesat18:59

As images of lifeless black-slicked birds and limp sea turtles begin to flood the media, it is becoming apparent just how catastrophic the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is becoming. No one can predict how long it will continue and just how devastating this disaster might prove to be.

One thing is clear: The fragile ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico are at great risk. Adding to the tragedy is that this is an incredibly vital area for countless numbers of species that come for refuge to this specific stretch of the country to breed, nest, spawn, feed, and rest during migration. Peak migration and breeding times are late-April through mid-May. It really could not be worse timing.

As noted in The New York Times, “even the frantic preparations to protect the most vulnerable coastlines likely will not prevent devastating harm to key species as the Gulf of Mexico oil spill hits shore at the worst possible time for migration and breeding.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the oil spill could affect up to 20 national wildlife refuges, and four covering more than 70,000 acres are in immediate concern.

Which animals are most threatened by this nightmare of an environmental disaster? Here is a round-up of some of those most in peril.

Brown Pelicans
The brown pelican has not had an easy time of it. The gracefully gangling birds were only removed from the endangered species list last year, and there is a major population, around 34,000 of them, currently nesting in the Gulf at the Breton National Wildlife

Diving birds are very susceptible to oil spills because they come into direct contact with the oil. A bird’s feathers overlap to trap air and provide the bird with warmth and buoyancy.

Birds that come in contact with an oil slick may get oil on their feathers and lose their ability to stay waterproof, they may ingest oil while trying to clean their feathers or when they try to eat contaminated food, and they may suffer long-term reproductive effects.

Brown pelicans were once the victims of hunters seeking feathers for millinery — which led to the birth of the National Wildlife Refuge System more than 100 years ago when President Theodore Roosevelt created the first refuge at Pelican Island in Florida.

In 1970, brown pelicans were officially declared an endangered species when their population was decimated by the use of DDT.

Sea Turtles
Of the seven remaining species of sea turtles known today, five of those species are in the Gulf. The oil spill area is one of the only foraging grounds for the most endangered species of the bunch, the Kemp’s ridley turtle, which is in its peak nesting season.

One of its two primary migration routes runs south of Mississippi. Loggerhead turtles, also endangered, feed in the warm waters in the Gulf between May and October.

The seven species that can be found today have been around for 120 million years (longer than the dinosaurs) — and many of these species live up to 80 years.

Dolphins
Several dolphin species routinely inhabit the northern Gulf, and already 12 bottlenose dolphins have been found dead due to the the oil spill, reports Yahoo! News.

When marine mammals come to the surface to breathe, they may inhale hydrocarbon vapors that can result in lung injuries; oil that comes in contact with the animals’ sensitive mucous membranes and eyes may produce irritations.

Young cetaceans may be injured due to ingestion of oil from contaminated teats when nursing; and there may be long-term chronic effects as a result of migration through oil-contaminated waters.

Shellfish And Crabs
According to The New York Times, the delta estuary is also the breeding ground for a lot of shellfish and crabs, says LuAnn White, director of Tulane University’s Center for Applied Environmental Public Health. “All of those are at risk for being damaged,” she said. “That estuary area is responsible for the breeding for about 40 percent of the aquatic life that’s in the Gulf,

COMMERCE CITY, Colo.-Uncle Sam is having a clearance sale, and it’s heavy on genuine cobra-skin boots.

Also, python boots. Ostrich boots. And stylish footwear made from lizard, eel and kangaroo.

They all have to go as the federal government cleans out the National Wildlife Property Repository, a vast warehouse crammed with 1.5 million miscellaneous items containing bits of creatures great and small.

Where Deer and Tiger Heads Are Stored

Confiscated tiger and leopard heads sit on shelves at the federal government’s National Wildlife Property Repository in Commerce City, Colo.

All the goods in the warehouse, from the shaggy Cape buffalo head to the beribboned walrus penis, have been seized at ports of entry by agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for violating laws regulating international trade in wildlife.

Warehouse supervisor Bernadette Atencio sends much of the contraband to schools, zoos and museums for exhibits. Ho-hum items that don’t have much educational value are destroyed; she recently sent dozens of lizard-trim eyeglass cases to the incinerator. Ms. Atencio also disposes of all the medicinal potions that cross her desk-and the occasional bug-infested trophy leopard.

But she can never catch up. The Congressional Research Service pegs the illegal trade in wildlife products at more than $5 billion and perhaps as much as $20 billion a year world-wide. Nearly 200,000 items came into the warehouse last year, overwhelming Ms. Atencio’s staff of four.

The solution? Clean house.

In a rolling online auction that started in February and will run through the summer, the Fish and Wildlife Service is selling off 300,000 items.

A dozen fur coats made from Siberian weasel sold for $4,450. A box of 270 acrylic key chains, each encasing “one small black salamander,” went for $35. There are table lamps made of clam shells, drums covered with unspecified mammal skin, watches festooned with mother-of-pearl.

And a curious collection of clay dwarfs decorated with bits of python skin.
“What do you call those little figurines, the strange ones?” Ms. Atencio asked her colleague Doni Sprague.

Ms. Sprague had spent the afternoon sorting a jumble of new arrivals: 21 boxes of medicine containing dried sea horse; an antique sword inlaid with sea turtle shell; several bottles of foul-looking wine-purportedly good for treating arthritis-with pickled snakes coiled inside.

She looked up, casting about for a proper name for the figurines.
“They’ve got big hats,” she said finally. “They’re bizarre.”

The auction disturbs some animal-rights activists who say an agency in the business of confiscating illegal goods shouldn’t turn around and sell them because that only spurs demand. But Fish and Wildlife officials say they will use the money to preach conservation, and they’ve won some key backers.

The agency “needs more resources,” said Crawford Allan, regulatory director of Traffic North America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to stopping the illegal wildlife trade. “Rather than burn these things and create excess carbon,” Mr. Allan said, “it’s fine to sell them.”

By law, the government can’t sell anything containing, or even suspected of containing, an endangered species. Ms. Atencio also holds back items she thinks are crass.
That includes a belt made from the spotted fur of a Margay, a South American jungle cat. The unlucky creature’s head, stuffed and glassy-eyed, is still attached, whiskers and all. It serves as the buckle. “That’s just wrong,” Ms. Atencio says.

She feels the same about a handbag made from a whole toad-tanned and shellacked, with a zipper down its belly. And about a knickknack made from a crocodilian reptile known as a caiman, posed with a pipe in its mouth and an ashtray in its claws. Looking at it, Ms. Atencio winces. “This is so degrading,” she says. “And it’s a waste of the resource-just to sit on someone’s end table.”

Much of the merchandise seized by inspectors is more pedestrian: belts, coats, wallets, jewelry and footwear, including top name brands (though the agency can’t vouch for their authenticity). Such items are typically legal to import to the U.S.-but only with the proper paperwork.

When documents are missing, the goods end up here, in a 22,000-square-foot warehouse outside Denver.

Last time the government sold off surplus from the repository, at a live auction in 1999, it raised $500,000 for wildlife conservation.

Ms. Atencio hopes to match that take with the online bidding, run by Lone Star Auctioneers. The Texas company focuses on surplus government property, selling everything from bulldozers to diamond rings to Elvis Presley collectible coins.
Fish and Wildlife items-all sold as is-are posted online in batches, several dozen a week.

Jeremy Reed, an insurance salesman in Spring, Texas, stumbled across the site while looking for used-car auctions. He was drawn to some snazzy ostrich boots. Starting bid: $225 for 19 pairs, none his size. Mr. Reed figured he could resell them to a friend who owns a Western-wear store.

“I’m kind of entrepreneurial,” says Mr. Reed.

By the time he started bidding, the price was up to $325. He went to $375-then watched in dismay as four new bidders jumped in. A week later, the boots were sold for $825.
Mr. Reed was disappointed. “There are people with really deep pockets,” he says. “That kind of ruins it for bargain shoppers like me.”

It’s perfectly legal to resell most items bought at auction, so many pop up on eBay as soon as they leave federal control.

That angers Ashley Byrne, a senior campaigner with the animal-rights group PETA.
Ms. Byrne argues that the sale just stimulates demand for weasel coats and python-trimmed figurines. Instead, she says, the agency should donate the merchandise to PETA. She has laid in quite a store of fake blood to splash on the shiny green snakeskin shoes and the weathered leather jackets trimmed with fox fur. She would like to put the bloodied goods on display anywhere she can, next to video monitors rolling footage of “animals being skinned alive or bludgeoned to death.”

The juxtaposition will make would-be shoppers queasy, Ms. Byrne promises. “As opposed,” she says, “to perpetuating the idea that it’s OK to turn an animal into a keychain.”Posted byJon Downesat19:03