BP Sued Over Incineration of Sea Turtles

(2PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

The lawsuit accuses the British energy giant of violating the U.S. Endangered Species Act and terms of its lease with the federal government for the deep-sea drilling rig that exploded on April 20, unleashing the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

The suit says rare turtles protected under the Endangered Species Act are being inadvertently burned to death when spill containment crews corral large patches of oil on the surface of the Gulf and set the petroleum ablaze to dispose of it.

Those deaths, the suit says, amount to illegal “takings” of endangered turtles. A check of federal records has found no indication that BP ever applied for special government permits that would allow for “incidental takes” of protected species under such circumstances, according to the lawsuit.

Among the creatures most at risk from the incineration of oil at sea are the endangered Kemp’s ridley turtle, the smallest known sea turtles in the world and among the rarest.

Private boat captains chartered for wildlife rescue missions in the Gulf said in affidavits filed with the lawsuits that many young sea turtles have tended to congregate among oil blobs floating in the water, apparently unable to distinguish between the oil and mats of seaweed that provide natural shelter on the surface of the Gulf.

The turtles are then presumably swept up and unable to escape when shrimp boats contracted for cleanup operations are used to drag fire-resistant booms to encircle the floating oil before it is set ablaze.

From http://af.reuters.com/article/…

The suit was brought by:

the Animal Legal Defense Fund  http://www.aldf.org/

the Animal Welfare Institute, http://www.awionline.org/

the Center for Biological Diversity  http://www.biologicaldiversity…

Turtle Island Restoration Network. http://www.seaturtles.org/

More info at the above websites.