Adventures of the Blue-eyed Bear

Oily Progression

The Blue-eyed Bear is making her way to the gulf coast to check out the effects of the oil spill for herself. Its a bit tricky to get there since she can’t ask her friends the Orcas to take her.

The BE Bear always loved food from the sea. On the Gulf coast there are mounds as big as houses of old clam shells, oyster shells, coquina shells, that are the remains of countless meals of Native Americans. People and animals have always counted on this clammy resource from the sea for millennium. Now it will be gone. Whether these little creatures will ever come back is unknown.

One day (April 26) your a happy clam minding your own business sucking in and spewing out Mississippi delta water.  Maybe adding on a layer or two of new calcium to your shell. Then in the distance (April 28) you see a haziness in the water. (Did you know that scallops have a row of little blue eyes and they can swim away from predators by jetting water out their shells). The haze looks ominous and the wind is blowing from the southwest. What’s a clam to do, you can’t move far if at all. Soon the haze is all around you and your clam buddies (May 1st). You suck water in but orange haze (oil) clogs your gills. You suck and suck, but you can breath. (If your having trouble imagining this, stick your head in a plastic bag and you’ll get the idea. Don’t try this without someone nearby to pull the bag off if you pass out cause its a lot like  water-boarding. Clams however have no one to pull them back from the edge). Your gills just get gooier and gooier and gooier and your dead. The BE Bear will let you know what she finds!