Even A Tiny Oil Spill Spells Bad News For Birds
OILED UP Consuming even small quantities of crude oil could make birds sluggish. MINNEAPOLIS - Birds don’t have to be drenched in crude oil to be harmed by spills and leaks. Ingesting even small quantities of oil can interfere with the animals’ normal habits, researchers reported November 15 on the annual assembly of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry North America. Birds can take in these smaller doses by preening slightly greasy feathers or eating contaminated food, for example. Big oil spills, such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, leave a trail of dead and visibly oily birds (SN: 4/18/15, p. 22). But incidents like last week’s 5,000-barrel spill from the Keystone pipeline - and BloodVitals SPO2 device smaller spills that don’t make national headlines - can also impression wildlife, even if they don’t spur dramatic pictures. We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. To test how oil snacks may have an effect on birds, researchers fed zebra finches small quantities of crude oil or peanut oil for two weeks, then analyzed the birds’ blood and behavior.
Birds fed the crude oil have been less energetic and spent much less time preening their feathers than birds fed peanut oil, stated study coauthor Christopher Goodchild, an ecotoxicologist at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. Oil-soaked birds will usually preen excessively to attempt to remove the oil, typically on the expense of other important activities reminiscent of feeding. But in this case, the birds didn’t have any crude oil on their feathers, so the lower in preening might be an indication they’re not feeling properly, the researchers say. Exactly how the oil impacts the birds’ activity levels isn’t clear. Researchers suspected that oil would possibly deprive birds of oxygen by affecting hemoglobin, which carries oxygen within the blood. Blood checks didn’t turn up any evidence of damaged hemoglobin proteins but did find some evidence that oil-sipping birds is perhaps anemic, Goodchild said. At the upper of two crude oil doses, birds’ blood contained less hemoglobin per crimson blood cell, an indication of anemia.
The findings, while preliminary, add to a growing pile of proof that estimates of the variety of animals impacted by oil spills could be too low. As an example, even a light sheen of oil on sandpipers’ wings makes it more durable to fly, costing birds extra vitality, a unique group of researchers reported earlier this 12 months. That would affect every part from birds’ every day movements to lengthy-distance migration. Questions or comments on this text? C. Goodchild, A. Metz and S. DuRant. Are broken erythrocytes linked to diminished exercise and self-upkeep behaviors in birds uncovered to crude oil? I. Maggini et al. Light oiling of feathers increases flight vitality expenditure in a migratory shorebird. Journal of Experimental Biology vol. 220, p. 2372. July 5, 2017. doi:10.1242/jeb.158220. We are at a critical time and supporting science journalism is more necessary than ever. Science News and our parent group, the Society for Science, need your help to strengthen scientific literacy and ensure that important societal selections are made with science in mind.
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