Few survivors after 500 ducks take dip in Alberta oilsands waste

[CHIMO]

Source: CBC News

Workers at a wildlife rehabilitation centre outside Edmonton worked to save a handful of oil-coated ducks Wednesday while environmentalists, politicians and Syncrude officials argued about who is responsible for the latest black mark against the province's oilsands development.

About 500 ducks landed Monday on a tailings pond filled with waste from Syncrude's oilsands operation at the Aurora North Site mine, north of Fort McMurray. Only a handful of birds survived the dip in the toxic water. Most of the ducks were too heavily coated with oil and waste to survive.

Three of the surviving birds are being treated at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre of Edmonton by volunteers. The birds arrived from Fort McMurray Tuesday at an Edmonton emergency veterinary clinic, and were sent to the rehab centre Wednesday morning.

"We need to get some food and water into them, and we need to get them warmed up,"said Kim Blomme, the shelter's founder.



Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2008/04/30/ducks-follo.html

[mike_c]

1. this is an utterly horrific story....

Humans will destroy ANYTHING for profit.

[liberal N proud]

2. You have that right.

[bluebellbaby]

3. And think, this will happen in ANWR if it's allowed to be opened...

shameful...

[Muttocracy]

4. :-(

[bluesmail]

5. they were ducks for crissakes, DUCKS!

[Pastiche423]

6. So?

[bluesmail]

10. I should've made myself clearer, Innocent Ducks!

[Hekate]

14. Doonesbury, late 1960s, Vietnam War news -- Boopsie wakes up to the horror of it all...

Bombs indiscriminately falling, killing peasants, water buffalo, and ..."Baby ducks!" cried Boopsie. "They're killing baby ducks!"

Sigh. I get you. What did the ducks ever do to us to deserve such carnage?

Hekate

[Lorien]

8. So YOU determine which living beings are worth compassion, and protection

from our messes?

[bluesmail]

9. you took it the wrong way, they were INNOCENT ducks

[Subdivisions]

11. I've so had it with humans and I'm disgusted and ashamed

of the part I've had in it.

Stop this planet and let me off. Then let the greedy and the indifferent hollow out the human-forsaken thing until they're left with nothing but a big pile of all the money and ruptured boils on their asses.

[dysfunctional press]

12. the planet doesn't have to stop for you to get off- if you really mean what you say...

[thunder rising]

7. This is CBC ... Can't Believe Canada. Assholes that lied about Billary's warning on NAFTA

Ohio voted against their own best interest and Billary winked and walked away with the win. Fuck them.

[truthisfreedom]

13. Not that I'm for more oil, but... isn't there some technology they could use to scare off the ducks?

Like those deer whistles? What's a duck's natural predator?

[JohnyCanuck]

15. Dick Cheney and Elmer Fudd?

Oh wait a minute, Fudd only shoots at wabbits. Ok, Dick Cheney then.

[freedomnorth]

16. but but but..

"If there was no alberta tar I would have to drive less with my brand new SUV..." :sarcasm: