Interview: The Spill’s Growing Toll On Marine Life in the Gulf of Mexico

Marine biologist Thomas Shirley of Texas A&M University has spent most of his career studying the aquatic life of the Gulf of Mexico. Indeed, shortly before the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Shirley was part of a team of 140 scientists from 15 countries that completed an all-species inventory of the Gulf, cataloguing 15,700 species of sea life. But that biodiversity now faces an unprecedented threat as a result of the Deepwater Horizon spill, which Shirley says is already having a “devastating” impact on marine life in the Gulf. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Shirley says the spreading tide of oil is not only dealing a serious blow to shrimp, oysters, crab, and fish, but also is taking a toll on the very foundation of the ecosystem: the tiny plants and animals known as phytoplankton and zooplankton. Should hurricanes drive oil deep into the Gulf’s wetlands this summer, Shirley says the effects of the spill will be further magnified. Shirley, who studied the fallout from another famous oil spill — the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska — says one thing is certain: “Twenty-one years later we still see effects [of the Exxon Valdez]. I predict long-term effects here.”

Read the interview