Assessing the impacts of the Gulf Oil Spill on coastal fish populations

A nice article by Mark Derewicz (excerpted below) about work by my UNC colleague Dr. Joel Fodrie on the impacts of the Gulf Oil Spill on coastal fish populations.

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The fish are all right?

Chris Baillie hauled the net onto the boat and dumped its contents in front of Joel Fodrie. They spread out the soaked seagrass and spotted an angry stingray, spindly spider crabs, grunting pigfish, and thousands of tiny pinfish, pipefish, puffer fish, starfish, stargazers, mojarra, anchovies, white perch, snapper, trout, and grouper. To Fodrie’s surprise, the fish looked fine. And his survey showed that there were millions of them, even in the wake of the worst oil spill in United States history. In fact, some species were more abundant than ever. But will this hold true over the long haul?

Read the whole article here at Endeavors