deepwater horizon

On November 16, the Consortium for Ocean Leadership joined with the Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea (COMPASS) and the National Research Council of the National Academies to sponsor House and Senate briefings on restoring the ecosystem services that support economic vitality in the Gulf of Mexico. The briefing highlighted findings from a recent National Academies report that examined…

Last year the world’s eyes turned to the Gulf of Mexico when British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon drilling unit exploded, causing what became the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry.  Eleven people lost their lives in the explosion that resulted in 205.8 million gallons of crude oil leaking into the Gulf, 17 were injured, and…

Truffle shuffle: According to a letter published in the April issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Buffo the truffle-hunting dog made an unusual find: a one-pound Burgundy truffle in the forests of southern Germany in November. As lead author Ulf Büntgen said in a recent Wired Science article, “This wasn’t a small find, but a big and expensive…

Many animals migrate in the fall to exotic locales and warmer, more abundant southern climates. Among the more famous migrating winged species are monarch butterflies, but there are several species of birds that also migrate during the fall. Some of these birds, such as hawks, rest and “refuel” in the Gulf region of the United States as they traverse southward.

Since oil began leaking from a rig in the Gulf of Mexico last April, concerns regarding the safety of the region’s seafood abounded. Now, more than two months after the leak was sealed, public officials, federal scientists and even President Obama have all been saying that seafood from the Gulf region is safe to eat. So why aren’t consumers digging in? Several local leaders from the region impacted by the oil spill addressed this topic last week during the most recent hearing of the National Commission on the British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling in Washington, D.C.

The second meeting of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling highlighted both deficiencies in the Obama Administration’s and British Petroleum’s handling of the spill, as well as methods to improve coordination between those two parties.

Participants in the hearing, which occurred August 25 in Washington, DC, sought to examine regulatory oversight issues in offshore drilling. One point of consensus between both commissioners and several of the panelists was that scientific input into the review process needed to be increased.

Here are some highlights from the latest ESA Policy News by ESA’s Science Policy Analyst, Terence Houston.

It seems the only certainty amidst the Gulf of Mexico environmental disaster is that nothing is certain. From the amount of oil continually pouring from the seafloor to British Petroleum’s use of chemical dispersants, this crisis has been anything but straightforward. As evasive, and at times downright misleading, as BP has been, the environmental impacts of this disaster are far from allusive. Just take a look at the photos on the Public Broadcasting Service’s News Hour site to get a sense of urgency surrounding this crisis.

“Menopausal” aphids sacrifice themselves for the colony, Gulf oil spill myths debunked, the benefits of (and new considerations for) hiking, bee hives add to sustainable cuisine in San Francisco and the masters of disguise in the animal world—photos included. Here is the latest in ecological science from the third week in June.