Dolphin assassins menace Gulf of Mexico
Heavily-armed, frightened, and confused. No, we don’t mean the Bush Administration, but a group of killer dolphins trained by the US Navy and lately washed into the Gulf of Mexico by Hurricane Katrina, if The Guardian is to be believed.
According to an Observer report by Mark Townsend Houston, Navy dolphins trained to shoot suspected terrorist frogmen with narcotic dart guns mounted on their heads have gone over the top, and may be menacing divers, and perhaps nice dolphins like the ones recently found cowering near their former pens at the Marine Life Oceanarium in Gulfport, Mississippi. No wonder they were so frightened.
The evidence for this report is the loose speculation of one Leo Sheridan - “a respected accident investigator who has worked for government and industry” - who, we are told, “had received intelligence from sources close to the US government’s marine fisheries service confirming that dolphins had escaped.”
“If divers or windsurfers are mistaken for a spy or suicide bomber, and if [the animals are] equipped with special harnesses carrying toxic darts, they could fire,” Sheridan told the Observer. “The darts are designed to put the target to sleep so they can be interrogated later, but what happens if the victim is not found for hours?” he fretted.
Worrying to be sure. We find, however, that Sheridan has made sport of gullible reporters in the past. In 2003, he was confident that he and a team of divers he advised had located the site where English aviator Amy Johnson died, after her plane went into the sea off Kent in 1941. The Guardian carried that item too. Not surprisingly, there has been little news about Johnson’s plane since the announcement.
He also appears to have been confident, back in 1998, that a group of US Navy killer dolphins had come to grief off the French Mediterranean coast when they got loose and their handlers detonated a “radio-controlled explosion of their signal collars, so that no one could find out their missions.” (Find out their missions?)
More: channelregister.co.uk
Gulf of Mexico dolphin deaths reported
Scientists concerned by bottlenose dolphin deaths in the Gulf of Mexico have reportedly asked for the marine mammal equivalent of a disaster declaration.
A 12-member working group of scientists voted Monday to recommend the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration add the dolphin deaths to an "unusual mortality event" the group declared in March for manatees, the Naples (Fla.) Daily News reported Tuesday.
The scientists suspect "red tide" is responsible for the deaths and NOAA is expected to initiate a study of the microscopic algae bloom's effects on dolphins, manatees, sea turtles and even seabirds.
More: upi.com
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Hwy 1 Km 11
or Hotel Twin Dolphin Parking Area
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Attraction Type: Things to do
Cabo Del Sol Golf Course
Hwy 1 Km 10.3
Hotel Twin Dolphin
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Attraction Type: Golf
Oil Production Down 78 Percent in Gulf of Mexico
The U.S. government says oil production in the Gulf of Mexico was nearly 80 percent below normal as of Saturday, five days after Hurricane Katrina tore through the region.
A report from the U.S. Minerals Management Service said Katrina had cut oil production in the Gulf by about 1.18 million barrels of oil per day. It said more than 280 offshore oil-drilling rigs and platforms remained evacuated.
The figures represent a slight improvement from Friday, when oil production in the Gulf was nearly 90 percent below normal.
Katrina's disruption to Gulf-area oil production and refineries
Shell, BP evacuate Gulf of Mexico workers due to Hurricane Katrina
Royal Dutch Shell PLC and BP PLC have evacuated workers from their platforms in the Gulf of Mexico as Hurricane Katrina heads towards the area.
Shell, in a statement, said it will evacuate around 120 non-essential staff from the eastern part of its Gulf operations as a 'precaution'.
A BP spokesman said it will also evacuate a still undetermined number of workers.
Both companies said the move will not affect their Gulf production.
Katrina came ashore in Florida on Thursday, killing at least three people and leaving about 1.5 mln
Woodside chases Gulf of Mexico deal
Woodside Petroleum Ltd will expand its interests in the Gulf of Mexico, if a $US883 million ($A1.17 billion) takeover bid for US-based explorer and producer Energy Partners Ltd (EPL) is successful.
Woodside, through its wholly owned subsidiary ATS Inc, has offered $US23 cash per share for the 38.396 million of EPL shares on issue in the US.
Woodside said the acquisition would immediately increase its production and reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, with EPL producing around 28,000 barrels of oil a day on average.
More : theage.com.au
Gulf of Mexico acts as gale
Millions of people cowered in fear yesterday as Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans and the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama with 225-kilometre-an-hour winds fuelled by the warm waters of the the Gulf of Mexico.
After stumbling across southern Florida as a weak category one storm late last week, Katrina wobbled into the Gulf and surged in strength over the next four days, becoming several times stronger before coming ashore yesterday as a category four hurricane with a storm track almost 640 km wide.
In terms of Gulf hurricanes, Katrina was almost the perfect storm.
"When
Senate Pushes Expanded Oil Drilling in Gulf of Mexico
In the 1980s, Senators and Representatives introduced legislation to protect the Gulf of Mexico, to restrict drilling. This Congress plans to expand drilling. This week the Senate quadrupled the Presidents request (map - pdf) for new acreage in the Gulf of Mexico.
Less than two weeks after S. 3711 was introduced, the Senate voted 71-25 to open up an additional 8.3 million acres of east-central Gulf of Mexico to drilling, ostensibly to provide relief for consumers.
However, no new crude will hit the market for 4-5 years -- and when it does,
Atlantis Marine Park: Mexico City
Atlantis Marine Park
An aquarium with dolphin and seal shows.
Attraction type: Aquarium
BHP Billiton says most Gulf of Mexico output restored
Anglo-Australian resources group BHP Billiton (BHP) said Thursday that production has restarted at most of its Gulf of Mexico oil wells, which stopped production last week because of Hurricane Katrina.
"All fields are in production except Boris and Mad Dog," a Melbourne-based spokeswoman said.
BHP produces about 25,000 barrels of oil a day in the Gulf, from the Mad Dog, West Cameron, Genesis, Green Canyon, Typhoon and Boris fields.
Teams are working to get the remaining two fields back into production as soon as possible, the spokeswoman said.
The statement was made
