Oil spill in the Galapagos

On January 16th a tanker carrying 243,000 gallons of oil, ran aground near the Galapagos Islands. This terrible event spread oil slicks over 488 square miles, and has potential to cause serious irreparable harm, to this historic chain of islands. In addition to endangering many precious species, the human population in this area has also suffered greatly. Thankfully only 170,000 gallons of oil managed to escape the vessel. Companies and the U.S. coast guard later retrieved the …

…break, seriously endangering marine iguanas, sharks, birds, and fish that feed off this algae. To conclude, any incident of an oil spill is terrible, but when one happens in such a historic and respected area, I think it should serve as a wake up call. The death of all these animals and the environmental damage are appalling. In the future we can only hope for better preemptive measures to ensure that this can be avoided.