It's relatively simple to count birds killed by wind turbines, it's close to impossible to consider the numbers of animals killed by oil spills. However; the numbers are dramatically higher than turbines and far more wide-spread across the animal species.
Of course, it's all but impossible to determine the numbers of animals killed by oil spills, for oil spills are the gift that keeps on giving.
14 SPECIES of sea turtles close to extinction due to Deep Water Horizon ALONE.
Exxon Valdez alone killed an estimated 250,000 birds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 250 Bald Eagles, 22 Orcas, and billions of salmon, salmon eggs, herrings and herring eggs,. These are numbers AT THE TIME OF THE SPILL. It's almost impossible to determine the lingering death toll of oil spills.
disq.us
In 2016 alone, more than 6,000 tons of oil was spilled. Between 1970 and 2016, there have been over 2.8 billion (with a "B") tons of oil spilled around the planet, killing uncountable numbers of animals.
The department of Energy estimates 1.3 millions of oil are spilled each year. This does not include the major spills such as the Deep Water, Gulf war, Ixtoc in the Gulf of Mexico again, Atlantic Empress in Trinidad, Montara in Australia, and Exxon, etc.
There's no way to definitively quantify the numbers for reasons that should be obvious, but if we extrapolate the numbers of animals estimated in the Exxon and Deep Water, we can have a crude estimate of animals killed. I combined them all into three groups to make it a bit simpler.
From 1970 to 2016 (46 years)
15.3 million birds
419 thousand turtles
156,400 sea mammals
and a minimum of 46 trillion fish and fish eggs
This does not include the trillions of plants such as kelp, and shoreline plants, or the numbers of these animals that keep dying due to lingering oil. e.g. there are still millions of gallons of oil resting on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and everywhere else oil spills in oceans.
So; while it's relatively simple to count birds killed by wind turbines, it's close to impossible to consider the numbers of animals killed by oil spills. However; you can see the numbers are dramatically higher than turbines and far more wide-spread across the animal species. |
