But for some reason BP thinks there's no hard feelings from its 2010 Gulf oil spill, the largest oil spill in U.S. history. Official estimates say BP's oil spill killed 6,381 birds including 577 brown pelicans but wildlife experts say those numbers are easily ten time that and maybe much more. Why? Because accurate counts of destroyed wildlife are difficult because many are killed by predators and most try not to die in the open--but to find a hidden place.
To avoid causing more deaths, the decision was made to not recover dead birds from the nesting islands until months after the spill said Melanie Driscoll, the National Audubon Society's director of bird conservation for the Gulf Coast. Pelicans who survived oil soaked deaths brought the oil back to their nests on their feathers which then covered the eggs. When "surviving young were old enough, they walked and swam through the weathered oil around the booms," reported The Lens.
Nor are dead and suffering birds and their offspring the only lasting damage BP caused to the Gulf region. According to an ongoing investigation by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) into the BP spill, there are clear links to current and ongoing mass dolphin deaths in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. Scientists have found more instances of adrenal and lung lesions in dolphins dying near the Deepwater Horizon spill than in non-exposed dolphins. Thank you, BP.
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