gulf tagged posts

Oil surveys in Gulf would injure 30 million marine mammals

August 10, 2017 Posted in News

whale in gulf

Seismic surveys for oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico would cause harm to marine mammals, according to the Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental groups. CBD issued its statement in response to a final environmental impact statement at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

 Its release comes as President Donald Trump seeks to expand offshore drilling in federal waters.

CBD said the analysis found as many as 31.9 million marine mammals in the Gulf of Mexico would be injured and harassed by oil and gas seismic surveys.

The number includes 80 percent of the Gulf’s endangered sperm whale population, estimated at 763 animals. Sperm whales would experience as many as 760,000 harassing exposures to airgun blasting over the next decade.

“Oil industry airgun ...

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Arabian Gulf coral reefs dying a slow death

June 11, 2014 Posted in News

Persian gulf's declining reefs

The coral content in Arabian Gulf reefs has declined by up to 50 per cent, posing a threat to fish stocks and marine habitats, an expert has warned. Dr John Burt, associate professor of biology at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), told Gulf News that extreme weather events also creates further stress and causes mass mortality of coral.

“A major weather event called El Nino is expected to occur again this summer. This usually raises water temperatures by 2.5 degrees Celsius. While El Nino’s effects vary, the one in 1998 caused great loss of corals around the world, including in the Arabian Gulf, and many have not yet been able to regenerate,” Dr Burt, who is also head of the NYUAD Marine Biology Laboratory, said.

“It is not usually possible to engineer solutions against wea...

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