Fines paid by BP for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill will help fund Minnesota’s expanded “Get the Lead Out” program to reduce loons deaths from lead poisoning.
A major, mutli-year study to determine the impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on Minnesota’s loon and pelican populations is underway, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources announced yesterday.
With the ice now out on most Quetico-Superior area lakes, experts are wondering if the region’s common loon population will have been impacted last year’s Gulf of Mexico Oil spill.
“As twilight descended and the fire settled to glowing embers, the stillness of the night was shattered by the unmistakable tremolo of the common loon. Within moments, loons from other territories and adjacent lakes began to respond, and the air came to life with the reverberating echo that we long to hear…”
Thanks to an unseasonably warm spring in the Upper Midwest, common loons are returning to nesting areas some three weeks ahead of schedule, the Minnesota DNR recently noted.
Minnesotans are being asked to gather dead loons to help biologists learn the bird’s main causes of death in a statewide study sponsored by the state’s Department of Natural Resources.
Common Loons, birds emblematic of the Quetico-Superior region, could face survival problems due to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Many of the loons that nest on Minnesota and Ontario lakes in summer, winter along the Gulf Coast.