Bad news from CI.
The highly damaging heavy bunker oil leaking from the ship will have a “disastrous” environmental impact on threatened sea birds and the coral band that rings the island, Dr Nic Dunlop, an environmental scientist with The Conservation Council of WA who specialises in sea birds, has warned.
Most at risk are sea bird populations that breed on Christmas Island such as the Brown Booby and Brown Noddy, Abbotts Booby and Frigate Bird.
The rare Abbott’s Booby does not breed anywhere else in the world, Dr Dunlop said.
There are populations of about 1000 to 2000 of these threatened species on the island.
Chris Gregory ===============================
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Chris,
The worst part about this disaster is that there are no facilities to handle oil spills in CI. The only positive, is that bunker oil tends to clump, rather than form a slick. This makes it somewhat easier to clean up. It still makes a mess of the shoreline and is harder to clean off affected animals.
Why the ship was allowed to dock during the sea conditions there at the moment is somewhat incomprehensible and shows a lack of inwit on some ones part.
Carl Clifford
Bad news from CI.
The highly damaging heavy bunker oil leaking from the ship will have a “disastrous” environmental impact on threatened sea birds and the coral band that rings the island, Dr Nic Dunlop, an environmental scientist with The Conservation Council of WA who specialises in sea birds, has warned.
Most at risk are sea bird populations that breed on Christmas Island such as the Brown Booby and Brown Noddy, Abbotts Booby and Frigate Bird.
The rare Abbott’s Booby does not breed anywhere else in the world, Dr Dunlop said.
There are populations of about 1000 to 2000 of these threatened species on the island.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/12534246/christmas-island-container-ship-breaks-in-half/
Chris Gregory ===============================
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http://birding-aus.org ===============================
===============================
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