Studies and many experts are backing up the idea of euthanizing oil-drenched birds in the Gulf of Mexico from the BP Oil spill, versus attempting to clean and save them. A German biologist says that for the bird's sake, it would be easier and less painful for the birds overall, if they are just put under.
The German animal biologist believes that the birds, despite the massive attempt to clean them up from the BP oil, will eventually die anyway and to kill them will be much kinder to them in the long run. Her recommendation is, "Kill, don't clean."
Even though there has been short-term success in cleaning the oil drenched birds from the BP oil, and releasing them back into the wild, catching and cleaning the birds oftentimes leads to fatal amounts of stress for the animals, shared Silvia Gaus, a biologist at the Wattenmeer National Park along the North Sea in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. She believes that the birds will not have a long-term success rate of surviving and says, "According to serious studies, the middle-term survival rate of oil-soaked birds is under 1 percent. We, therefore, oppose cleaning birds."
Supposedly, the birds in Gulf Coast who were oil drenched from the BP oil spill were forced to ingest coal solutions or Pepto Bismol by animal-rescue workers are in an attempt to prevent the poisonous effects of the oil. After attempting this process with many birds, it was said to be ineffective and the birds were not only suffering from this, but Gaus said that they would perish anyway from kidney and liver damage.
Experts say that once a bird is covered in oil, despite the oil's terrible taste and smell, a bird will still try and clean itself by using its bill and tongue to remove the toxic substance from its feathers. Birds cannot live without fluffy feathers that repel water and regulate their body temperature. Gaus gives more reason why the birds won't survive long time, "Their instinct to clean is greater than their instinct to hunt, and as long as their feathers are dirty with oil, they won't eat."
Guas says that to kill the birds quickly and painlessly before they die naturally from the BP oil that drenched them and will eventually kill them anyway, is the way to go. Those who favor Gaus and do not think that biologist should save the birds, say that although it the natural instinct of biologists to save the birds out of duty and ethical reasons, doing so will ultimately lead a bird to a worse death.
In addition, in regards to birds that were soaked in oil caused by the BP spill, it was said that, "Birds, those that have been covered in oil and can still be caught, can no longer be helped. … Therefore, the World Wildlife Fund is very reluctant to recommend cleaning."
So far, the horrible BP oil spill has yet to make significant landfall, limiting the numbers of birds affected, but observers worry that it is only a matter of time before beaches along America's Gulf Coast become blackened with the poisonous substance that is destroying lives.
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Comments
#1 Stupid Expert
Every living thing is going to die eventually. Place the birds that were covered in oil in zoos or sanctuaries where they can have a breeding program to bring back their numbers to make up for the ones killed by the oil. When the oil is cleaned up, introduce the youngsters back into the wild.
#2 Oil soaked birds to sanctuaries for breeding programs
Great idea, Danielle! And we need to keep in mind that our zoos and sanctuaries are affected by this economy too. We would expect BP to fully fund these rescue and breeding programs indefinitely since they created the catastrophe that would have made the animals extinct.. Such a horrific tragedy.....Oversight must be implemented to make sure not one more oil well will ever be drilled here until an effective system is created to prevent this from ever happening again.
#3 It would be considerably
It would be considerably cheaper and better in the long run to kill them.
What part of "the bird's instinct to clean is greater than its instinct to hunt" do you not understand?
#4 thats dumb i think we should
thats dumb i think we should at least try to sve them everyone deserves a chance to live. knowing that we are helping them makes us feel good rather than instantly killing them
#5 Helping them to feel good is
Helping them to feel good is selfish. One should try save the birds for their sake, not for the ones helping to feel good about themselves
#6 Idiots
Do we kill cancer patients? No, obviously not. We give you the chance to recover. It's not your job to play "God" you can't decide they will live or die. There still is a chance they these birds will live, so don't take away their tiny thread of hope.
#7 Actually, terminally ill
Actually, terminally ill patients are given the option of assisted suicide. So yes, we kill cancer patients.
#8 And what world do you live
And what world do you live in. What state will let you assist in suicide for terminally ill patients????? Any I guess as long as you don't get caught!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
#9 I think this is very sad, but
I think this is very sad, but the most humane solution. It is extremely unfortunate that these animals are suffering due to the oil spill, however extending their suffering is worse. I love animals and sympathize with biologists working to save the birds, but sometimes we must yield to better judgment.
#10 NO!!
I was listening to NPR's Talk of the Nation, and Michael Ziccardi, wildlife veterinarian, University of California at Davis is conducting wildlife recovery in LA currently. He has reported pelicans found healthy and alive 17 years after being soaked in oil, and cleaned up. They have saved MUCH wildlife from oil disasters. Are you saying all their hard work is for nothing? The REAL experts will tell you differently.
It is cruel to euthanize these animals based on the assumption they will die anyway; which has been PROVEN untrue. We must put our efforts into SAVING them from our man-made disaster, and not just killing them. I don't trust this "serious study" that only 1 percent survive, but I HIGHLY doubt that based on what I heard on NPR today.
Wildlife experts from all around the country are taking shifts and will be in this for the long haul caring for, and revitalizing the innocent wildlife affected by this oil spill. If you don't agree with them SAVING animals, stay the f*!@# out of thier way!
#11 RETARDED!
i think this is an extremely stupid thing to do. i dont understand why they think its ok to just kill the birds. they can save them and clean them! they dont deserve to die just because theyre covered in oil. they are just too lazy to clean them! lets use people for an example, if they just killed every person because they had a disease or disorder, just because they didnt feel like treating them, half of the people around us would be gone right now! and so would i. people need to wake up and realize that they need to help the poor animals, and they are probably going to want to kill the other animals covered in oil next, so then thats ALOT of animals dying and its just wrong and cruel!
#12 I think they should put the
I think they should put the poor birds out of their misery.
#13 Then the species will
Then the species will possibly become extinct!
#14 Hell no....
That isnt fair. Humans caused this mess and should give EVERY animal that was affected by this, the chance to survive! its only becasue the rich want to get richer and feel that they shouldnt 'waste' money on them
#15 Ask Real Experts
The brown pelican is not a European bird. The US has experts that know this bird well. Ask them first please, not someone with no experience in that specific field.
#16 He's a biologist. The region
He's a biologist. The region he's from doesn't matter. Just because he's from Europe doesn't mean he doesn't know anything about an American bird.
#17 Humans created the problem,
Humans created the problem, the birds however did not sure that's obvious, but to others not so much. If they stand even a 1% chance of surviving then they should get that chance. I would think it's a much higher chance than 1%. I agree with #5 stay the #!@$ out of their way. Big business should worry less about their stock market earnings and and worry more about the planet they leave to their children. There should be worst case scenarios taken into accout BEFORE you start drilling in deep water. Remote kill switches if that's even possible due to the pressure would be a good idea, or secondary pressure outlets etc.
#18 More about Big Polluter
British Petroleum (BP) has come up with a way to exploit the current 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil Well Crisis. The marketers at BP recently paid Google a lot of money to identify the search engine key words and terms that people are searching on to find information on the current 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil Well Crisis, and wh...en the search results pages come up, at the top of the list are paid links to take the curious user to pages that provide favorable and/or constructive information about BP.
While I am very upset with BP over their activities and attitudes since the current 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil Well Crisis occurred, I admire their marketing ingenuity that led them to work with Google to use search engine technologies and the human thirst for information regarding the crisis to their strategic marketing advantage (Schoenberger, 2010).
By the way, Google makes money on this and BP draws people into a realm of websites and web pages where they are controlling the message, so it is a win-win situation for both parties. Of course, the consumer in search of the truth is the loser, so to speak, because they get the BP propaganda instead of the real story when they visit the websites that BP wants them to see.
Reference
Schoenberger, A. (2010). BP Uses Google AdWords to Fix Brand Reputation. A web posting on the BrainChild Group website, retrieved on June 6, 2010 from http://www.thebrainchildgroup.com/blog/2010/06/bp-buys-google-adwords-to-fix-brand-reputation/.
#19 Are you kidding me!
This sounds just like a European! I read an article where a sparrow disrupted a domino stacking contest once. They killed the bird! We don't like to kill birdss in the US, we admire them....stupid Europeans!
#20 The cleaning process is
The cleaning process is almost certainly traumatic for these birds. If in fact the oil will certainly kill them then there is no sense in putting 99% of birds through hell only to save 1%. Besides, the process of saving this 1% leads to greater pollution: all the soap used, hundreds of gallons of fresh water wasted, all the fuel for rescue transportation. It's not worth it. It's great these people care about wildlife, but they need to put common sense before their feelings.
#21 Please save the birds!
BP wants you to believe that the birds will die anyway and that they should not try to be saved because IT WILL COST THEM MONEY. DON'T BELIEVE A WORD OF THOSE LYING BASTURDS.
#22 WHAT HAS THE WORLD COME TO?
ok so listen here to what i have to say cause theres a lot to say here for me. Well here it goes. so the poor little birds are goona get killed and all that just cause most of them are covered in oil? what sense does that make? i wanna know what "EXPERT" as they say, told us to do this crap to these birds? i mean come on! when we are sick do others say, OH NO SHES CONTAGOUS!!! KILL THE SUCKER!!!!! now do we? by the way i diddnt know how to spell that so dont comment on thAT and second of all, if you are sick enough to go around killing little birdies cause theyre covered in oil, you eather A. need help, B. are sick in the head and the lights upstairs arnt turned on or C. completly wacked! eventually these birds will become extinct, and next the stupid idiot that said we need to kill the birds will be all " o yea by the way we need to kill all the seals, and next the turtles, and so on and so on. its not a necessity to kill the birds and its not an option to them! they think that as soon as something pops in their head and DING they have this whole brilliant plan to completly wipe out all bird that live their! im way yonger than whoever the heck said this and im even smart enough to realize that this is not the solution to all the birds dying! my mom buys this soap called dawn soap and the dawn peaople cleaned all the little cute seals with DAWN and they all survived and your goona tell me that the solution to this whole ABSOLUTE NONSENCE is to kill everything off! WOW WHAT HAS THE WORLD COME TO!!!! ITS NOT EVEN THEIR FAULT THAT THE DUMB DONKEY B.P. PEOPLE ARE SO STUPID AND THEY DIDDNT GET THEIR YEARLY CHECKS WITH THE GOVERNMENT ON THE OIL RIGS TO MAKE SURE EVERY THING WUZ WORKING PERDECTLY FINE! and the government is STILL stupid enough to give liseces to the B.P. people to build more oil rigs! you seriouldly belive this crap?!?!?! wow come on i am even smarter than that! and btw, i am a very smart person because on my sisterds i pod theres this i.q. test and i ranked BRILLIANT!! O YEA SO B JELOUS! jeezum... if i could do an angry face on here, I TOTALLY WOULD! AND ONE MORE THING! TO ALL THE B.P. SUPPORTERS AND THE B.P. PEOPLE U SHOULD RLLY LAY OFF! come closer to the screen... closer... closer.. come on dont be shy... MORON!!!!!
#23 Do you not care!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is a huge undertaking to save the inhabitants of the gulf but are we not the caretakers of our fellow creatures. to put them down without care is nonetheless not acceptable. are we barbarians or just selfish asses!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lets just be all into ourselves as we always are. well i am not that selfish. to all those who say let them die or put them down, maybe we should euthanize you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we did this, not them and they need our help. screw all you shitheads who agree with this nazi cunt who felt jewish people need to be put down.
#24 You're All Clueless
You lack reason, opting instead to think with your hearts. And in doing so, you're too blind to see the most humane thing we can do for the wildlife effected is to put them down. But no, in your bleeding heart idiocy, you'd rather prolong their misery so you can feel better about yourselves.
This planet would be better off if some of YOU perished in an oil catastrophe!