Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Pretty Slick Seal Deal

Worn-out seals

This picture was sent to us by the Lurker from Tulsa, forwarded to him from an oil rig worker in the Caspian Sea.

As you can see, this petroleum sucking, environmental-poison baby-seal-killer has some hitchhikers aboard. What he (and I) can’t figure out is how those seals got on the platform. The Lurker says it’s ten feet from the water to where those tired seals are lying, soaking up some rays. So how did they get there?

I know we have an oil rig worker or two who read (and donate to) Gates of Vienna. Perhaps they can tell us how these water babies got onto that platform?


[post ends here]

10 comments:

ɱØяñιηg$ʇðя ©™ said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Dymphna said...

The News post is a good place to put Off Topic comments.

Thanks.

PatriotUSA said...

Now shame on you! Posting such a picture that might give pause to all those who think oil rigs are bad ju ju for fish and mammals.
I really love this and I will cross post this as it will play
nice with the environazis here in the regressive Northwest.

Here we have TOO MANY Seals and
Sea Lions. Look up Ballard Locks
on the Columbia River for starters.
I am addicted to Steelhead and Salmon fishing and lost count of the times some furred flippered
torpedo ripped off my fish as I
was fighting it into the boat or up onto the beach.

One Chinook salmon weighed
54 lbs with most of it's belly
and back ripped off.
It probably would have
easily topped 65 lbs.
There has to balance
when you protect a species.
It can and will get out of hand.

Paul Weston said...

I was a commercial diver on oil rigs in the Persian Gulf back in the eighties.

But I am baffled by this picture. I have read somewhere that the Caspian sea level can rise by a few inches (tidal) to a few feet (wind) but if it was wind related it would take a seriously suicidal seal to go anywhere near an off-shore structure.

Perhaps it is a Jack-Up rig, but even then....

As for harming the environment, we used to spear-fish for grouper round the oil rig "risers" on the sea bed. They are warm and attract an abundance of sea life on an otherwise barren and sandy sea floor.

We used to sell hundreds of kilos a week to the Saudi coastguard, one of whose duties was to ensure there was no spear fishing...

Zenster said...

In this video an adult seal with not much of a head start reaches a target that is almost seven feet above the water's surface.

Given a chance to reach sprinting speed, ten feet should not be too much of a stretch. After all, in confined circumstances once again, penguins somehow manage to catch some air quite well, too.

Sick pinniped joke for the day:

Q: What is a baby harp seal's favorite drink?

A: Canadian Club on the rocks!

. said...

PatriotUSA:
Here we have TOO MANY Seals and
Sea Lions. Look up Ballard Locks
on the Columbia River for starters.


The Ballard Locks are located between Puget Sound and Lake Union in Seattle. The Columbia River is 200 miles away. Perhaps you were thinking of Bonneville Dam, which has had sea lion problems similar to Ballard Locks.

. said...

The other interesting aspect of this picture - I didn't know there were seals in the Caspian Sea, href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_Seal">but now I know

. said...

Let's try that link again

1389 said...

The petroleum people at Grouchy Conservative Pundits tell me that there are stairways on these drilling rigs that go down to the water line or below, which the seals can use to get up to the catwalks.

. said...

As for the environmental benefits or detriments of off-shore oil platforms, the problems, Dymphna, primarily relate to accidental discharges of oil into surrounding waters. Here is a list I found of some notable large discharges. Here's a story about a recent problem between Australia and Indonesia on an oil rig. There are also some controversies regarding the fate of the platforms once they are decommissioned. And yes, they are ugly, but that's obviously not a reason to ban them.