Oil spill killed 15,000 Galapagos iguanas, study estimates
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Your support makes all the difference.As many as 15,000 marine iguanas died on one of the Galapagos Islands in the year after an oil spill, say scientists who blame trace amounts of the fuel.
Naturalists initially believed that the unique Galapagos ecosystem that inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution largely escaped damage from the January 2001 spill.
A year after a tanker ran aground off San Cristobal Island and leaked about 170,000 gallons of fuel, a report by the Charles Darwin Foundation logged just six animal deaths attributable to the spill.
But now, Martin Wikelski, part of a team that has spent 20 years studying a species of iguana unique to the Ecuadorean islands, said the spill had a far larger impact.
Writing in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, the Princeton University ecologist and his co–authors estimate as many as 15,000 marine iguanas died on Santa Fe Island in the 11 months after the accident. In one iguana colony on the island, 30 miles (48 kilometers) west of the spill, 62 percent of the animals previously marked by researchers perished.
"We came back after a year and were astonished to find a large number of skeletons on the coast," Wikelski said.
In contrast, a marine iguana population on Genovesa, an island 75 miles to the north that was untouched by the spill, remained stable with no deaths among the marked reptiles there.
Wikelski said the iguanas are territorial and tend to stay put, allowing scientists to count them accurately.
He said there is little risk of any long–term effect on the marine iguanas, since they are accustomed to having their numbers decimated by food shortages.
Wikelski said he is uncertain why the Santa Fe iguanas died but suspects oil is the culprit. Although relatively small amounts of oil washed ashore on Santa Fe, he believes it was enough to disrupt the intestinal bacteria that the ocean–diving creatures rely on to digest the algae they eat.
Wilkelski and the Galapagos National Park are suing Petroecuador, Ecuador's state–owned oil company, for dlrs 600,000 in damages. Petroecuador President Rodolfo Barniol would not comment on the study or the lawsuit.
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