Ten years later, BP oil spill continues to harm wildlife?especially dolphins

(Read how the Gulf oil spill has harmed dolphins and turtles.)Scientists say it’s still too early to tell definitively what the impact has been for longer-lived species such as dolphins, whales, and sea turtles.A loggerhead sea turtle feeds on an oil-contaminated Portuguese man-of-war in the Gulf of Mexico on May 5, 2010.Even so, “based on our science to date, if you were a marine mammal alive in the Gulf at the time of the spill, it doesn’t look good for you,” says Cynthia Smith, a veterinarian at the National Marine Mammal Foundation. Likewise, sperm whales, which emit longer, lower-frequency clicks, haven’t been detected recently near the spill site, but this may just mean they have moved.Marine mammals are important indicators of the overall health of the ocean, so studying them can tell scientists a great deal about their environment.“We have all these different pieces of the puzzle, but it’s hard to know how they fit together,” Frasier says.A Kemp's ridley sea turtle digs a nest on a beach in Rancho Nuevo, Mexico. The project was completed this past February and is being hailed as a success for brown pelicans, with up to 20 percent of the state’s population already nesting there, along with great egrets, roseate spoonbills, royal terns, and tri-colored herons.What was a bust for birds turned into a temporary boon for some fish: Scientists think that the lack of birds in the skies over the Gulf of Mexico is one reason some populations of fish exploded after the spill.There were twice as many Gulf menhaden, for example, in the years following the spill as in four decades before, likely because so many fish-eating birds were absent.Other fish species have shown evidence of having been harmed by oil, including nearly two thirds of all Gulf sturgeon, a threatened species. (Read how some fish deformities have been linked to the spill.)Recent research that tested 2,500 different fish across the Gulf found evidence of oil exposure in all 91 species sampled, suggesting that the impacts of the spill are widespread and ongoing.It could take decades to understand how oil affects the next generation of whales, coral, sea turtles, birds, fish, and more.For Smith, Frasier, Etnoyer, and others involved in spill research, this event has become career-encompassing.