Local: University of South Florida study finds more sick fish in oil spill area than rest of Gulf of Mexico

University of South Florida study finds more sick fish in oil spill area than rest of Gulf of Mexico by Craig Pittman

© Steve Murawski, USF - Darla Cameron/Times
A USF survey of the Gulf of Mexico last summer found
more sick fish in the area of the 2010 oil spill than
in other areas. The dots show areas where fish with
skin lesions were found.

A government-funded survey of the entire Gulf of Mexico last summer found more sick fish in the area of the 2010 oil spill than anywhere else, according to the top University of South Florida scientist in charge of the project.

"The area that has the highest frequency of fish diseases is the area where the oil spill was," said Steve Murawski, an oceanographer who previously served as the chief fisheries scientist of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

That doesn't necessarily mean the red snapper and other fish with nasty skin lesions were victims of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, he said. That same area has lots of oil rigs, leaky pipelines and even natural oil vents in the sea floor that could be the source of any contamination that has affected the fish.

"Even if the disease is from oil," he said, "it's another step to show it's from the oil spill."

But the USF findings, announced at a scientific conference this month, have been hailed as a big step forward by researchers from other institutions pursuing similar studies.

"We still are seeing sick fish offshore and the USF survey confirmed our findings of 2 to 5 percent of red snapper being affected," James Cowan, an oceanography professor at Louisiana State University, said in an email to the Tampa Bay Times.

In addition, Cowan said, laboratory studies of those sick fish "are beginning to trickle out that show that chronic exposure to oil and dispersant causes everything from impacts to the genome to compromised immune systems. Similar findings ... are being found in shrimps and crabs in the same locations."

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