How many animals died because of the 2010 BP gulf oil spill?

Answer 1

Billions of sea organisms have died.

Millions have fish have died, or not been born due to interference from the oil spill.

Tens of thousands of larger animals have been killed due to the oil spill.

These are some of the numbers collected from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) on the birds collected. (Sept 17th report)

From Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and On-Water

Birds: 8030 total collected.

4311 visibly oiled. 3705 no visible oil, 14 pending.

2071 dead, 5959 alive.

Dead and oiled: 2240, (14 pending).

Alive and oiled: 2071.

Sea Turtles: 1114 collected

470 visibly oiled, 196 no visible oil, 448 pending

528 alive, 586 dead

dead and oiled: 17, (448) pending

Alive and oiled: 453

Mammals: 101 collected

6 visibly oiled, 91 no visible oil, 4 pending

9 alive, 92 dead

dead and oiled: 4 (4 pending)

alive and oiled: 2

Reptiles:

Notes:

• Many animals have died and sunk to the bottom of the ocean or have been eaten by predators/scavengers after death.
• Many birds/animals die of natural causes.
• Some oiled animals may later die from complications after they are released
• Some animals with no visible oil may have ingested oil.

Estimates from the beginning of 2010 were near five thousand. However, more are dying daily.

In terms of land animals, at least 3000 have died, tens of thousands of others have been affected. Millions of sea organisms have been affected, but there is no accurate count.

It is hard to tell how many of the animals have died directly as a result of the oil spill, how many indirectly died, and how many died due to natural causes.
LOTS.

Answer 2

No one knows the answer to that yet. Reports come in daily of new animal deaths so the tally is constantly growing.

And of course the numbers are only for what has been found. Many dead animals are likely either eaten or decay long before they are found.

The latest statistics I could find were:

658 dead birds

279 sea turtles

36 dead mammals (dolphins, whales)

In particular danger are the dolphins and whales. Sperm whales for example only have a total population of around 1,500 and they reproduce so rarely and take 5+ years to mature, so the loss of even a few sperm whales may cause extinction in the coming years as they are already barely able to sustain their current population.

No one is even attempting to count the volume of fish or shell fish dead but reports from fisherman state they are bringing in 50% or less fish and shellfish volume than in previous years

Answer 3

many thousands of animals were killed.

Answer 4

100,000,000