Impacts of offshore oil and gas development on marine wildlife resources

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview on the impacts of offshore oil and gas activities on marine mammals, sea turtles, seabirds and coastal wetlands in the United States Gulf of Mexico, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia. Using a 1987 publication on the long-term environmental effects of offshore oil and gas development as a benchmark, the chapter also considers whether the existing knowledge base has improved for cetaceans, sea turtles and seabirds. The chapter examines what intensification of offshore oil extraction will mean for the future conservation marine wildlife in U.S. Atlantic coast, deepwater Gulf of Mexico and British Columbia. There continues to be large degrees of uncertainty in our knowledge of the impacts of offshore oil and gas operations on wildlife primarily relating to a lack of population-level information for pelagic organisms. For areas not yet opened to development, identification and formal protection, including protection from noise from seismic testing, of marine biological hotspots is critical. Experimental designs incorporated into mitigation practices and resulting data collected by independent researchers, would contribute towards improving the assessment of mitigation effectiveness and towards quantifying impacts of offshore oil and gas operations on wildlife.