INDReporter

Did BP's oil spill kill this whale?

by Patrick Flanagan

A series of photographs taken by NOAA researchers of a dead sperm whale floating in the Gulf of Mexico near the site of the BP oil spill were released Wednesday by Greenpeace.

While the sight of the massive whale is certainly disturbing, what's more troublesome is the fact that it took the federal government two years to finally release the photographs, despite a Freedom of Information request being filed in August 2010, according to a Greenpeace press release.

"The problem remains that we don't know exactly what BP and the government scientists saw, what they documented, and how they kept their records," Greenpeace Research Director Kert Davies says in a prepared statement. "The systemic clamp down on information and consistent lack of transparency and images such as these continue to remind us to demand full accountability from the oil companies and the government, especially with the looming legal settlement between the company and the government."

The photographs, received by Greenpeace in late-September, are believed to have been taken by NOAA researchers who were aboard the vessel Pisces on June 15, 2010.

"Before the disaster, this area of the gulf had one of the largest and healthiest populations of sperm whales in the world according to biologists," "These photos of a dead young whale remind us that we still don't know the full ecological story of the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster."

Go here to view more pictures of the dead sperm whale, and here to read the full Greenpeace press release.