An effort to save thousands of sea turtle hatchlings from dying in the oily Gulf of Mexico will begin in the coming weeks in a desperate attempt to keep an entire generation of threatened species from vanishing.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will coordinate the plan, which calls for collecting about 70,000 turtle eggs in up to 800 nests buried in the sand across Florida Panhandle and Alabama beaches.

It’s never been done on such a massive scale. But doing nothing, experts say, could lead to unprecedented deaths. There are fears the turtles would be coated in oil and poisoned by crude-soaked food.

“This is an extraordinary effort under extraordinary conditions, but if we can save some of the hatchlings, it will be worth it as opposed to losing all of them,” said Chuck Underwood of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“We have a much higher degree of certainty that if we do nothing and we allow these turtles to emerge and go into the Gulf and into the oil … that we could in fact lose most of them, if not all of them,” he added. “There’s a chance of losing a whole generation.”

Dozens of workers are fanned out across the coast marking turtle nests, most of them threatened loggerheads, which nest largely along Florida Panhandle and Alabama beaches.

In about 10 days, they will begin the arduous process of excavating the nests, mostly by hand. The digging must be slow and delicate — aside from making sure the shells don’t crack, the eggs can’t be rolled around or repositioned to protect the embryo inside.

Then the eggs will be carefully placed in specially designed Styrofoam containers, like coolers, along with sand and moisture to mimic the natural nest. The containers will then be trucked about 500 miles east to a temperature-controlled warehouse at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.

There, the eggs will remain until hatchlings emerge, and they will be placed one-by-one on Florida’s east coast, where the turtles can swim oil-free into the Atlantic Ocean.

“There’s a whole lot of unknowns in what we’re doing,” Underwood acknowledged, noting many of the hatchlings could die anyway because of the stressful moving process.

All of the sea turtles that venture into Gulf waters have already suffered because of commercial fishing and habitat loss. Endangered Kemp’s ridleys, which are nesting on beaches in Mexico and Texas, have washed up by the dozens dead along Gulf beaches since the April 20 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion that has gushed up to 130 million gallons of oil into the sea.

While some have been found oiled, it remains unclear how many of them died because of it. Tests are ongoing. The Kemp’s ridleys aren’t in as immediate of danger because oil hasn’t been washing ashore yet in their nesting places in the western Gulf. But some fear those hatchlings also could eventually make it into the crude.

Threatened loggerheads, which are currently being considered for the added protection of endangered status, also have been found oiled and dead since the spill started, along with leatherbacks and green turtles.

David Godfrey, executive director of the Gainesville, Fla.-based Sea Turtle Conservancy, agrees this plan is the only option to save as many turtles as possible.

He said if left alone, the turtles will soon begin emerging from their nests and heading straight out to sea to feed in masses of oil-soaked seaweed.

Even more unusual, in a field that typically sees division between government entities and conservationists, there is agreement on what to do. Teri Shore, program director with the California-based Sea Turtle Restoration Project, said she thought the plan was good given the circumstances.

“If those sea turtles swim out to the Gulf, they’re going to face a massive oil slick which will cause them to perish or at least significantly decrease their chances of survival,” she said.

Godfrey said he agreed with the strategy and called it a “pretty amazing plan” because conservationists rarely support relocating sea turtle nests. They often push for a change in human behaviors, such as dimming lights along beaches at night to avoid disorienting them.

But no one can control the oil, he noted.

“We’re talking about allowing the entire year’s class of hatchlings to emerge and swim to their certain doom, and are we just going to sit back and let that happen?” he said. “We just can’t.”

(NPR)

An LSU medical student is dead and her brother is in critical condition after a hit and run accident last week in South Africa.

Nicole Murphy, 24, and her brother Brian Murphy, 19, were attending the World Cup.

They were hit by a drunk driver while walking back to their hotel after going to the games and then a concert.

“We’re just asking people for prayers and whatever they can. Just remember us and I would just want to make sure our family gets back and we can lay our little sister to rest,” said sister Lauren Murphy.

Nicole’s father is still in South Africa, but the family wants to bring Brian home, which would cost about $300,000.

“Insurance isn’t going to cover any of those costs to get him back here. An ICU jet is gonna be in excess of hundreds of thousands of dollars,” said Danny Murphy, the victim’s father.

Nicole played in local soccer leagues and her friends are trying to organize a benefit game to help raise money. Benefit organizers are hoping to play the game on July 3. Details are not finalized but teammate Justin Gilbert says there will be updates on neworleanscoedsoccer.com.

Gilbert was also in Murphy’s class at LSU’s medical school.

“For anybody growing up playing the sport the World Cup’s the ultimate destination. At least she got to see it one time before…” Gilbert said while trailing off.

A family member says South African police did make an arrest the day after the hit and run.

They tracked down the driver because his license plate fell off at the scene.

The Murphy Family support Fund has been set up at Home Bank in Lafayette where the Murphy family lives.

Donations can be made at home24bank.com, in person at the bank, or by calling 337-237-1960.

(WVUE)

The crude oil gushing in the Gulf of Mexico isn’t only a problem when it hits beaches or fouls sensitive marshland. The floating slick offshore can make a mess of the commercial ships that traverse Gulf waters, and then track that oil into shipping channels, ports and marinas.

Just south of Mobile, Ala., The Resolute, a seagoing tug, is positioned near the entrance of a ship channel. The 100-foot tug would normally be docking and sailing ships in and out of Mobile harbor, but now it has been converted into a floating decontamination station. Oily ships can stop and get a wash before they come into port.

Preventing Further Contamination

“We’re spraying them down to make sure they don’t contaminate the uncontaminated part of Mobile Bay,” says Coast Guard Marine Science Technician John Revis, the pollution inspector aboard the Resolute.

It is one of at least 37 offshore cleaning posts from Louisiana to the Florida panhandle, paid for by energy giant BP, which operated the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded April 20, sending oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.

“We’ll get real sticky brown stuff on there that we can’t even get off with a water cannon — all the way to a light sheen that we can spray off real quickly,” Revis says.

If the ships can’t be sprayed off, and are still trailing sheen in the water, Revis sends them to decontamination stations closer to shore that have better equipment.

Mostly, Revis says, they are seeing the heavier oil — and not just on commercial vessels like the freighters and tankers that offload at the Port of Mobile. Some of the worst-soiled boats are the ones now working for BP in the cleanup, like the Simple Man, a shrimp trawler-turned-oil skimmer. Its captain asks the Resolute to inspect the vessel’s hull.

“This is mostly what we’ve been dealing with during the day … these shrimp boats that have been out here skimming oil,” Resolute Capt. Jimmy Minhinnette says.

‘A Big Old Squirt Cannon’

On the deck below the bridge, the Resolute crew readies to go to work.

Able-bodied seaman John Meaut takes the helm of a giant red water cannon that sucks up seawater.

“It’s like squirting a big old squirt cannon,” he says. “It’s what we use to suppress fires and what we’ve been using to spray off the hulls of any vessels that have oil on them.”

Minhinnette announces on the ship’s intercom that they’ll be spraying off the starboard side.

Meaut opens the water valve and aims the high-pressure spray low -– where Simple Man’s hull meets the water. He methodically works all the way around the boat as the captain above maneuvers the tug to avoid a bladder full of oily water the shrimp boat is towing inshore for disposal.

From the bridge, Minhinnette commands: “Get that water away from that bladder!” The crew spins the water cannon to port, and the job is finished.

“All right, Simple Man,” Minhinnette says over the radio, “that’s going to do it.” The Simple Man responds: “Sure do appreciate it. Y’all have a good one.”

Minhinnette, who is from Mobile, says watching what’s happening in the Gulf is sad, but this is at least one thing he and his local crew can do to help.

(NPR)