June 2, 2010
RSOE Emergency and Disaster Information Service

Situation Update No. 11
On 02.06.2010 at 19:07 GMT+2

Five major hurricanes are forecast to slam into the United States this year, potentially hampering efforts to clean up the devastating Gulf of Mexico oil spill, scientists reported Wednesday. Forecasters from Colorado State University increased their hurricane outlook for 2010, citing warmer-than-normal tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures and cooling tropical Pacific conditions. A total of 18 named storms were forecast to form in the Atlantic basin between June 1 and November 30, with five expected to develop as major hurricanes packing winds of 111 mph or greater. Since 1950, an average of 2.3 major hurricanes have formed in the region. "We have increased our forecast from early April, due to a combination of a transition from El Nino to current neutral conditions and the continuation of unusually warm tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures," said Colorado State forecaster William Gray. "We anticipate a well above-average probability of United States and Caribbean major hurricane landfall." Lead forecaster Phil Klotzbach warned that the probability of a major hurricane hitting the US coastline was 76 percent, compared with a last-century average of 52 percent. Klotzbach said if the hurricane season unfolds as forecast, it could impact the clean-up of the mammoth oil spill in the Gulf, churning tarry waters towards land. "If the storm tracks to the west of the oil, there is the potential that the counter-clockwise circulation of the hurricane could drive some of the oil further towards the US Gulf Coast," Klotzbach said. The forecasters said there was a 51 percent chance of a major hurricane hitting the Gulf Coast west of the Florida panhandle. The United States's eastern seaboard also had a 51 percent chance of a major hurricane while the Caribbean was judged to face a 65 percent threat.


Situation Update No. 10
On 02.06.2010 at 17:15 GMT+2

British Petroleum says operations to contain a blown-up oil well in the Gulf of Mexico have cost the company nearly one billion dollars. "The cost of the response to date amounts to about 990 million dollars, including the cost of the spill response, containment, relief well drilling, grants to the Gulf states, claims paid and federal costs," BP said in a statement Tuesday. "It is too early to quantify other potential costs and liabilities associated with the incident." Failure to cap the spill has caused BP's stock to plummet 15 percent in US trading, down USD 6.40 to USD 36.55. It also fell 14 percent on the London Stock Exchange. The London-based oil giant's stock has sunk about 40 percent ever since the Deepwater Horizon oilrig exploded on April 20 -- which killed 11 people, losing USD 74.9 billion of shareholder value. BP's market capitalization nosedived by USD 20 billion on Tuesday alone. After the failure of "top kill" to contain the environmental disaster, the company says it is going to apply another method. The new method comprises cutting the ruptured oil pipe on the seabed and containing the gushing oil by placing a cap, and soaking the oil to the surface. Yet, there is doubt about the success of the new plan. US officials maintain that the new tactic may even worsen the oil flow. BP says it may take until August to cap the spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which has been described as the worst environmental disaster in US history. It is feared that over 20 million gallons of oil have so far entered the Gulf of Mexico.


Situation Update No. 9
On 02.06.2010 at 03:20 GMT+2

Some disturbing pictures from Dog River Marina. Thousands of dead fish have been floating along boats, buildings, and the shore line. However, officials tell us they do not believe the fish kill is the result of the oil spill. Jody Johnston came to the Dog River Marina Tuesday afternoon to eat at the River Shack Restaurant. Johnston said he came "here to get some food, and saw all these fish. Nuts. I've never seen anything like it in my life." Josh Edwards, an employee of River Shack Restaurant, said, "Literally, it looked like the whole river back there behind the restaurant had frozen up. It looked like snow and ice on top of the water." Edwards said he first saw all the dead fish last night about 10:00. He said, "Some of them were alive, some of them had already died and were floating on top. Some of them were dead on the bottom. Others were moving around." The fish were all about an inch to an inch and a half. Edwards said, "I really don't know what to think. I guess I've got just as many questions as everybody else that lives here." An official at Alabama Marine Resources told News Five officials are aware of the situation and its nothing unusual. He said the fish are Gulf menhaden, and fish kills like this happen around this time of the year because menhaden become so plentiful in an area that they use up all the oxygen in the water.


Situation Update No. 8
On 01.06.2010 at 12:38 GMT+2

Apart from the concerns raised about the environmental impact of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, many say chemicals used to fight the spill are toxic. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stated on Monday that the underwater use of dispersants has shown promising results in breaking up oil from the BP spill, stressing that the strategy has no negative effects on aquatic life. "EPA and the US Coast Guard are taking steps that could reduce the volume of dispersants applied in the Gulf. While we do know dispersants are less toxic and shorter-lived than the oil, much remains unknown about their impact on the environment when used in these unprecedented volumes," the statement said. University of South Florida oceanographers, however, have discovered a 10-km wide "oil cloud" in the northeast of the wellhead, about 35 kilometers to the northeast, which is believed to be the result of the used chemical dispersants. "It may be due to the application of the dispersants that a portion of the petroleum has extracted itself away from the crude and is now incorporated into the waters with solvents and detergents," David Hollander said onTuesday, adding that it was the second major deepwater plume discovered since the explosion at BP Plc's Macondo well 43 days ago. The "insidious" underwater contaminants are considered a threat to the aquatic life as they cannot only poison plankton and fish larvae but also may affect animals higher up the food chain in the long run. Scientists believe it is impossible to predict exactly where the cloud of dissolved hydrocarbons in the water is heading, stressing that more studies are needed to report the short- and long-term effects of the event. Oil has been flooding non-stop into the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in April 20, killing 11 people. Authorities have put the leak at 12,000 to 25,000 barrels a day. However, experts believe the damaged well is gushing at least 70,000 barrels of oil a day.


Situation Update No. 7
On 01.06.2010 at 03:18 GMT+2

Independent scientists and government officials say there's a disaster we can't see in the Gulf of Mexico's mysterious depths, the ruin of a world inhabited by enormous sperm whales and tiny, invisible plankton. Researchers have said they have found at least two massive underwater plumes of what appears to be oil, each hundreds of feet deep and stretching for miles. Yet the chief executive of BP PLC — which has for weeks downplayed everything from the amount of oil spewing into the Gulf to the environmental impact — said there is "no evidence" that huge amounts of oil are suspended undersea. BP CEO Tony Hayward said the oil naturally gravitates to the surface — and any oil below was just making its way up. However, researchers say the disaster in waters where light doesn't shine through could ripple across the food chain. "Every fish and invertebrate contacting the oil is probably dying. I have no doubt about that," said Prosanta Chakrabarty, a Louisiana State University fish biologist. On the surface, a 24-hour camera fixed on the spewing, blown-out well and the images of dead, oil-soaked birds have been evidence of the calamity. At least 20 million gallons of oil and possibly 43 million gallons have spilled since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded and sank in April. That has far eclipsed the 11 million gallons released during the Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska's coast in 1989. But there is no camera to capture what happens in the rest of the vast Gulf, which sprawls across 600,000 square miles and reaches more than 14,000 feet at its deepest point. Every night, the denizens of the deep make forays to shallower depths to eat — and be eaten by — other fish, according to marine scientists who describe it as the largest migration on earth. In turn, several species closest to the surface — including red snapper, shrimp and menhaden — help drive the Gulf Coast fishing industry. Others such as marlin, cobia and yellowfin tuna sit atop the food chain and are chased by the Gulf's charter fishing fleet.

Many of those species are now in their annual spawning seasons. Eggs exposed to oil would quickly perish. Those that survived to hatch could starve if the plankton at the base of the food chain suffer. Larger fish are more resilient, but not immune to the toxic effects of oil. The Gulf's largest spill was in 1979, when the Ixtoc I platform off Mexico's Yucatan peninsula blew up and released 140 million gallons of oil. But that was in relatively shallow waters — about 160 feet deep — and much of the oil stayed on the surface where it broke down and became less toxic by the time it reached the Texas coast. But last week, a team from the University of South Florida reported a plume was headed toward the continental shelf off the Alabama coastline, waters thick with fish and other marine life. The researchers said oil in the plumes had dissolved into the water, possibly a result of chemical dispersants used to break up the spill. That makes it more dangerous to fish larvae and creatures that are filter feeders. Responding to Hayward's assertion, one researcher noted that scientists from several different universities have come to similar conclusions about the plumes after doing separate testing. No major fish kills have been reported, but federal officials said the impacts could take years to unfold. "This is just a giant experiment going on and we're trying to understand scientifically what this means," said Roger Helm, a senior official with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In 2009, LSU's Chakrabarty discovered two new species of bottom-dwelling pancake batfish about 30 miles off the Louisiana coastline — right in line with the pathway of the spill caused when the Deepwater Horizon burned and sank April 24. By the time an article in the Journal of Fish Biology detailing the discovery appears in the August edition, Chakrabarty said, the two species — which pull themselves along the seafloor with feet-like fins — could be gone or in serious decline.

"There are species out there that haven't been described, and they're going to disappear," he said. Recent discoveries of endangered sea turtles soaked in oil and 22 dolphins found dead in the spill zone only hint at the scope of a potential calamity that could last years and unravel the Gulf's food web. Concerns about damage to the fishery already is turning away potential customers for charter boat captains such as Troy Wetzel of Venice. To get to waters unaffected by the spill, Wetzel said he would have to take his boat 100 miles or more into the Gulf — jacking up his fuel costs to where only the wealthiest clients could afford to go fishing. Significant amounts of crude oil seep naturally from thousands of small rifts in the Gulf's floor — as much as two Exxon Valdez spills every year, according to a 2000 report from government and academic researchers. Microbes that live in the water break down the oil. The number of microbes that grow in response to the more concentrated BP spill could tip that system out of balance, LSU oceanographer Mark Benfield said. Too many microbes in the sea could suck oxygen from the water, creating an uninhabitable hypoxic area, or "dead zone." Preliminary evidence of increased hypoxia in the Gulf was seen during an early May cruise aboard the R/V Pelican, carrying researchers from the University of Georgia, the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi. An estimated 910,000 gallons of dispersants — enough to fill more than 100 tanker trucks — are contributing a new toxin to the mix. Containing petroleum distillates and propylene glycol, the dispersants' effects on marine life are still unknown. What is known is that by breaking down oil into smaller droplets, dispersants reduce the oil's buoyancy, slowing or stalling the crude's rise to the surface and making it harder to track the spill.


Situation Update No. 6
On 01.06.2010 at 03:12 GMT+2

BP officials warned Monday they may not be able to plug the Gulf of Mexico oil leak until August, as Louisiana residents warned the spill could wipe out dozens of fish species and their centuries-old way of life. "Drilling relief wells is still seen as the best solution," but they will not be onstream for at least eight weeks, BP spokesman John Currie told AFP, as US officials warned the spill is now the worst environmental disaster to ever hit the United States. BP engineers are scrambling to prepare their next bid to stop the oil from gushing into the sea, using robotic submarines to cut off a burst pipe and then capping it and siphoning the oil up to vessels the surface. Although local media said the "cut and cap" procedure was under way, Currie said the effort was unlikely to begin before Wednesday. At least 20 million gallons of oil are feared to have already flooded into the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20 killing 11 people and sank into the sea two days later. BP's last attempt to stop the leak, dubbed "top kill," failed on Saturday, leaving an estimated 12,000 to 19,000 barrels of oil belching into the Gulf every day.

The still-growing slick is threatening Louisiana's fragile wetlands, as well as the Gulf region's fishing and tourism industries. With hurricane season starting Tuesday, residents fear oil could be pushed up onto the Florida, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama coastlines when storms roll through the area. "I think what the American people need to know is that it is possible we will have oil leaking from this well until August when the relief wells will be finished," White House energy advisor Carol Browner warned Sunday. Former shrimper turned tugboat captain Kevin "Godzilla" Curole told AFP, "This is going to kill more species of fish than BP even knows exist, and it will kill our whole way of life. "People used to come here to fish. But now they're going to come here to look at a memorial to what is going to be an extinct way of life and tell their kids: 'See? Those are fishermen. They're the people who built this town and southern Louisiana,'" he said at his home in this fishing town on Lafourche Bayou. Two separate studies, by Louisiana State University and the University of Florida, have found large plumes of oil hanging underneath the water. "These plumes will make it very difficult for fish to survive in the northern margins of the Gulf. We may very well lose dozens of vulnerable fish species," Prosanta Chakrabarty, a fish scientist at Louisiana State University, told AFP.

The pancake batfish, a species that Chakrabarty discovered six months ago and was due to introduce to the world in August in a report in a scientific journal, was among the species under threat. "Unfortunately, by August the oil spill will have leaked scores of millions of gallons of oil into their habitat, as well as a million gallons of toxic dispersant," he said, fearing the batfish might not live long enough to be formally recognized as a species. Meanwhile, BP warned that fraudsters saying they were employees of the British oil company were taking advantage of the economic plight brought on by the spill and "offering applicants training and promising job placement for a fee. "This is a scam. BP does not charge to train and hire applicants," said Neil Chapman, a spokesman for the oil company. Thousands of fishermen have been forced by the spill to leave their boats in port during peak fishing season, as state officials shut down prime fishing grounds. Currie said BP has been paying up to 3,000 dollars a day to out-of-work fishermen and others who are able to prove they have been impacted by the crisis. But on Monday, staff at a restaurant in Galliano told AFP their claims for compensation had been rejected because, although their hours have been cut since the crisis broke, they had recently been given a pay rise. Other angry Louisiana residents slammed BP's efforts to stop the leak as being just a well-managed show. "It's all just smoke and mirrors," New Orleans resident Danielle Brutsche told AFP. "What they're doing now, trying to cap the leak, I think they're just doing it to distract us so it looks like they're doing something while they build the relief wells," she said. But Currie said BP has "spent 900 million dollars on this so far, and that would be a mighty expensive show we were putting on.


Situation Update No. 5
On 31.05.2010 at 08:16 GMT+2

Streaming video of oil pouring from the seafloor and images of dead, crude-soaked birds serve as visual bookends to the natural calamity unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. But independent scientists and government officials say another disaster is playing out in slow motion - and out of public view - in the mysterious depths between the gusher and the coast, a world inhabited by sperm whales, gigantic jellyfish and diminutive plankton. More than a month after the BP PLC spill began, the disaster's dimensions have come into sharper focus with government estimates that more than 18 million gallons of oil - and possibly 39 million gallons - has already poured from the leaking well, eclipsing the 11 million gallons released during the Exxon Valdez spill. "Every fish and invertebrate contacting the oil is probably dying. I have no doubt about that," said Prosanta Chakrabarty, a Louisiana State University fish biologist. The deep Gulf is an area where light can't penetrate and researchers rarely venture. Yet what happens there can ripple across the food chain. Every night the denizens of the deep make forays to shallower depths to eat - and be eaten by - other fish, according to marine scientists who describe it as the largest migration on earth. In turn, several species closest to the surface - including red snapper, shrimp and menhaden - help drive the Gulf Coast fishing industry. Others such as marlin, cobia and yellowfin tuna sit atop the food chain and are chased by the Gulf's charter fishing fleet. Many of those species are now in their annual spawning seasons. Eggs exposed to oil would quickly perish. Those that survived to hatch could starve if the plankton at the base of the food chain suffer. Larger fish are more resilient, but not immune to the toxic effects of oil.

The Gulf's largest spill was in 1979, when the Ixtoc I platform off Mexico's Yucatan peninsula blew up and released 140 million gallons of oil. But that was in relatively shallow waters - about 160 feet deep - and much of the oil stayed on the surface where it broke down and became less toxic by the time it reached the Texas coast. Since BP's Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank more than five weeks ago, scientists said they have found at least two sprawling underwater plumes of what appears to be oil, each hundreds of feet deep and stretching for miles. A plume reported last week by a team from the University of South Florida, was headed toward the continental shelf off the Alabama coastline, waters thick with fish and other marine life. On Sunday, BP's CEO Tony Hayward disputed the existence of the plumes, saying testing by the company showed no evidence that oil was being suspended in large masses underwater. Hayward said oil's natural tendency is to rise to the surface, and any oil found underwater was in the process of working its way up. However, the researchers said oil in the plumes had dissolved into the water, possibly a result of chemical dispersants used to break up the spill. That makes it more dangerous to fish larvae and creatures that are filter feeders. Responding to Hayward's assertion, one researcher noted that scientists from several different universities have come to similar conclusions about the plumes after doing separate testing.

No major fish kills have yet been reported, but federal officials said the impacts could take years to unfold. "This is just a giant experiment going on and we're trying to understand scientifically what this means," said Roger Helm, a senior official with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In 2009, LSU's Chakrabarty discovered two new species of bottom-dwelling pancake batfish about 30 miles off the Louisiana coastline - right in line with the pathway of the spill caused when the Deepwater Horizon burned and sank April 24. By the time an article in the Journal of Fish Biology detailing the discovery appears in the August edition, Chakrabarty said, the two species - which pull themselves along the seafloor with feet-like fins - could be gone or in serious decline. "There are species out there that haven't been described, and they're going to disappear," he said. Recent discoveries of endangered sea turtles soaked in oil and 22 dolphins found dead in the spill zone only hint at the scope of a potential calamity that could last years and unravel the Gulf's food web. Concerns about damage to the fishery already is turning away potential customers for charter boat captains such as Troy Wetzel of Venice. To get to waters unaffected by the spill, Wetzel said he would have to take his boat 100 miles or more into the Gulf - jacking up his fuel costs to where only the wealthiest clients could afford to go fishing. Significant amounts of crude oil seep naturally from thousands of small rifts in the Gulf's floor - as much as two Exxon Valdez's every year, according to a 2000 report from government and academic researchers. Microbes that live in the water break down the oil. The number of microbes that grow in response to the more concentrated BP spill could tip that system out of balance, LSU oceanographer Mark Benfield said. Too many microbes in the sea could suck oxygen from the water, creating an uninhabitable hypoxic area, or dead zone. Preliminary evidence of increased hypoxia in the Gulf was seen during an early May cruise aboard the R/V Pelican, carrying researchers from the University of Georgia, the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi.

An estimated 910,000 gallons of dispersants - enough to fill more than 100 tanker trucks - are contributing a new toxin to the mix. Containing petroleum distillates and propylene glycol, the dispersants' effects on marine life are still unknown. What is known is that by breaking down oil into smaller droplets, dispersants reduce the oil's buoyancy, slowing or stalling the crude's rise to the surface and making it harder to track the spill. Dispersing the oil lower into the water column protects beaches, but also keeps it in cooler waters where oil does not break down as fast. That could prolong the oil's potential to poison fish, said Larry McKinney, director of the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. "There's a school of thought that says we've made it worse because of the dispersants," he said. There have been dire reports of a powerful surface current, the loop current, carrying oil toward Florida. The current is one of the better understood dynamics at work in the Gulf, yet even those predictions are subject to debate. Figuring out what is happening farther down in the water column gets even trickier. The Gulf sprawls across 600,000 square miles and reaches more than 14,000 feet at its deepest point. At different depths, currents pull in different directions at varying speeds. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration monitoring at the site of BP's Deepwater Horizon spill shows that on any given day water at different depths moves in dozens of directions. Scientists who study the Gulf said their efforts to track the spill had been hobbled by a shortage of research vessels.


Situation Update No. 4
On 26.05.2010 at 02:55 GMT+2

The U.S. government has declared a "fishery disaster" in the seafood-producing states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama due to an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, making them eligible for federal funds, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said Monday. "The disaster determination will help ensure that the federal government is in a position to mobilize the full range of assistance that fishermen and fishing communities may need," Locke said in a statement. The move came as part of the U.S. government's continued pressure on BP Plc to clean up the "massive environmental mess" and as a top official said fines would definitely be imposed on the energy giant for the spill. The company insisted it was doing all it could to try to seal a blown-out oil well spewing hundreds of thousands of litres of oil into the Gulf every day, a disaster that threatens to become the worst U.S. oil spill in history. BP said it would make another attempt to plug the five-week-old leak on Wednesday, but gave it only a 60-70 per cent chance of success. The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, said the government would "absolutely" levy fines on BP. "I don't know of anything else we could do, but if the government felt there were other things to do it is clearly within their power to do that," BP chief operations officer Doug Suttles told reporters. During a tour of affected areas of the Gulf coast on Monday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar assured residents the government would hold BP accountable for the economic hardship the spill had imposed on them. "We will keep our boot on their neck until the job gets done," Salazar told reporters. "This is a BP mess, it is a horrible mess and it is a massive environmental mess." Salazar said an ongoing investigation by U.S. authorities would hold the company accountable "both civilly and in whatever way is necessary," appearing to leave open the possibility of a criminal inquiry. Asked about the possibility of a criminal investigation, BP CEO Tony Hayward said: "There will be all sorts of investigations following this. Rightly, and we will deal with them as they come."


Situation Update No. 3
On 25.05.2010 at 07:51 GMT+2

More than a month after the oil started gushing...and still no end in sight.Today the federal government declared a fishing disaster in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama due to the crude and chemical dispersants now floating throughout the Gulf.The EPA has asked BP to significantly scale back on their airdrops of chemical dispersant, and the EPA is testing alternatives.Scientists say the dispersant is making the oil heavy...so that it pools together into plumes below the surface.BP's next plan to plug the leak will shoot mud then cement into the ruptured well.The procedure is delayed until Wednesday and BP isn't sure it'll work.


Situation Update No. 2
On 25.05.2010 at 03:05 GMT+2

More than 300 sea birds, the bulk of them brown pelicans and northern gannets, have been found dead along the U.S. Gulf Coast during the first five weeks of BP's huge oil spill off Louisiana, wildlife officials reported on Monday. The 316 birds found dead along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida -- plus 10 others that died or were euthanized at wildlife rehabilitation centers after they were captured alive, far outnumber the 31 surviving birds found oiled to date. The raw tally of birds listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as dead on arrival at wildlife collection facilities include specimens obviously tainted with oil and some with no visible signs of oil contamination. But all are being counted as potential casualties of the oil gushing since April 20 from a ruptured wellhead on the floor of the Gulf because of their proximity in time and space to the spill, said Jay Holcomb, who directs a rescue center for birds in Fort Jackson, Louisiana. The specimens eventually will be analyzed to determine more conclusively if the birds were contaminated with oil from the BP spill, he said. Holcomb, director of the California-based International Bird Rescue Research Center, said mortality for sea birds, many of them in the midst of their breeding season, is expected to climb sharply, especially if hurricanes move into the region and sweep more oil ashore. "The potential for this being catastrophic is right there because there's a massive amount of oil in the water, and it's still pouring out, and there's a lot of nesting birds and a lot of birds using the coast," he told Reuters. "If the tropical storms take that oil and move it, that's when you're going to see the real impact, I think."

The birds known to be hardest hit by oil in the Gulf so far are those that feed by diving into the water for fish, including the brown pelican, removed last year from the endangered species list, and the northern gannet, Holcomb said. But shorebirds, wading birds and songbirds will increasingly be put in harm's way as more oil washes onto beaches and into marshlands. Oil impairs the insulating properties of birds' feathers, exposing them to cold and making it difficult for them to float, swim and fly. Chemicals in the petroleum also can burn their skin and irritate their eyes. They also end up ingesting the oil when they preen, damaging their digestive tracts. Other wildlife at immediate risk in the Gulf are sea turtles, dolphins and whales. More than 150 sea turtles were reported washed up dead or dying at last count a week ago and were being examined as possible oil spill victims, though no outward signs of oil contamination were readily apparent, wildlife officials said. Still, that number is considered higher than normal for the Gulf region at this time of year. Results from the first batch of about 40 turtle necropsies -- the animal equivalent of autopsies -- were expected soon. In addition, at least a dozen dead dolphins have been reported as stranded in the spill zone.


Situation Update No. 1
On 05.05.2010 at 03:09 GMT+2

Wildlife officials are saying that at least 35 endangered sea turtles have washed up on Gulf coast beaches, but it's not clear what's killing them. Moby Solangi, director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport, Miss., said Tuesday necropsies had been completed on the turtles and found no oil. Experts are still warning the turtles may have eaten fish contaminated by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Some wildlife officials say the turtles may have been killed by aggressive shrimpers trying to haul in catches before the oil potentially contaminates their fishing grounds. The Washington, D.C.-based conservation group Oceana says officials need to determine what is killing the turtles quickly.