Harvey Rice
Source: The Houston Chronicle
June 9, 2010

Galveston, TX - Oil from the BP blowout is killing the five endangered and threatened sea turtle species in the Gulf of Mexico and could set back the recovering Kemp's ridley sea turtle by a decade if this year's hatchlings fall victim to toxic oil, according to a report to be released today.

Observers have counted 50 oiled turtles and 322 turtles stranded on Gulf beaches, 272 of them dead, since the April 20 blowout, said Elizabeth Wilson, marine scientist and author of the report from the environmental organization Oceana. The numbers far exceed the 30 to 50 stranded turtles normally found this year on the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, Wilson said.

"A lot of dead sea turtles won't be found," Wilson said. "So really the ones we see dead or oiled are actually a small percentage of those being found."

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