The Riverhead foundation for Marine Research and Preservation has two members of of its staff down on the waters of the Gulf looking for oiled animals. They will be rotating staff members through December or until they are no longer needed in the Gulf. Currently they are working on getting a blog up but have little to no Internet access. Once they do we will let you know. Oh, and a helpful hint given to them for responders is to not store cans or jarred food in the vehicles. They tend to explode due to the heat. I guess Connie wasn't exaggerating (she reports on the heat in this post).
Below is some of what the group will be heading out to do! This is a photo of Dr. Brian Stacy collecting an oiled Kemp's ridley.
The Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center sent one of their staff down to the Aquarium of the Americas last week as well. There she has been working with some of the turtles Connie was working with as well as a bottlenose dolphin. You can follow some of her work on the facebook page. She also got to work with Jeff Corwin as well (you can follow his updates on twitter). For those of you who do not know of Jeff check out this post about his visit to the New England Aquarium.
I also stumbled across this FAQ about the northern gulf sea turtle egg relocation on the US Fish and wildlife service website.
Below is a map from the NOAA Environmental Response Management Application with markers indicating where all the turtles and marine mammals have been sighted so far in the gulf.
To all the responders that are either there or are planning on heading down: Stay cool and good luck!
-Kerry and Adam
