In the Deep Gulf, Marine Life Fell About 60% After Deepwater Horizon — and Fish Were Down 63.5% by 2015
In a deep, dark stretch of the Gulf of Mexico, the number of marine animals fell by about 60% in the years following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion, according to a new study. In the band between the sunlit surface and the darkest depths, where the BP-operated well failed and released 134 million gallons of oil, the number of fish dropped 63.5% from the year after the spill to 2015.
Crustaceans including shrimp and krill, a key food source for whales, fell 62%, and larger animals such as squid and octopuses fell 59.7%, the study published Monday in the journal PNAS found.
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Those declines rest on three separate lines of evidence: what the nets caught, what acoustic sonar picked up, and genetic work showing species losing diversity as inbreeding sets in. And the populations have not come close to recovering, the study found.
I would resist filing this under spill damage and stopping there: co-author Isabel Romero, a chemical oceanographer at the University of South Carolina, says the oil and the dispersants used to clean the spill both hurt fish, just in different ways. The cleanup belongs in the ledger.