Report: Whale and dolphin deaths may be 50 times higher than believed
Mar. 30, 2011 -- VANCOUVER (PostMedia News) -- The death toll from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill goes far beyond the animal corpses washing ashore, says a report that warns that whale and dolphin deaths may be 50 times higher than believed.
The report, by an international team of marine mammal specialists, estimates that for every corpse that washes ashore another 50 may never be found.
"When people present the raw carcass counts without any caveats, without any qualifiers, they are implying we have a 100 per cent carcass recovery rate when we don't have anything like that," says Rob Williams of the University of B.C. He is lead author of the report to be released Wednesday as the one-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster approaches.
He and his colleagues take issue with recent reports that point to a carcass count of just over 100 whales, dolphins and porpoises as evidence of the modest environmental impact of the spill.
