Update: Slick Cover-ups and Dead Dolphins, but Graphics Can’t Show the Full Picture

As we reported earlier, more than 10 miles of the Refugio/Santa Barbara, California, coastal community has experienced contact with and damage from over 100,000 gallons of thick, crude oil that poured into the ocean from a ruptured pipeline. The latest figures on marine wildlife deaths resulting from this oil spill are reported by the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. But we land-dwellers never really can appreciate nor document the full picture from a simple graphic. It is vital to document what is happening, and the importance of these efforts to quantify the disaster cannot be overlooked. But the overriding and global reality is that the impacts from this, and other oil spills, are truly innumerable and are much more pernicious and long-lasting than any of us may want to believe.

More marine mammals have already been killed by this incident than would have been anticipated, as typically the short-term impacts are seen most visibly in seabirds. Pelicans and others have certainly taken their horrific hits from the oil. But what is happening to dolphins, seals and sea lions has painted a darker picture than usual already. Sea lions along California were already experiencing an unprecedented die-off prior to this incident.

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