In the past week, scientists have been cheering at their discovery of what appears to be one of the biggest whale shark groups ever seen in the northern Gulf of Mexico. There were 100 of the amazing creatures feeding on the surface over a deepwater feature known as Ewing Bank, which is located off of Louisiana.

However their cheering was short lived as one of their worst fears was confirmed… They are not avoiding the spill area. Eric Hoffmayer, a scientist with the University of Southern Mississippi, had this to say on the subject, “Our worst fears are realized. They are not avoiding the spill area, those animals are going to succumb. Taking mouthfuls of oil is not good. It is not the toxicity that will kill them. It’s that oil is going to be sticking to their gills and everything else.”

Whale sharks are the largest fish on the planet. They feed by filtering plankton and other tiny sea animals from the water through a colander like feature in their mouths. As mentioned before, it is not the ingestion of the oil that is the major problem, although it is not healthy for the Whale sharks.

“Based on all the information I’m getting, they are doing the normal things regardless of the oil. The idea that sharks have these evolved senses that will protect them — well, they haven’t evolved to detect oil,” Hoffmayer said.

Hoffmayer had been tagging Whale sharks on the Ewing Bank in June of last year. The trackers he managed to get onto the whale sharks showed that some of the animals spent July making their way hundreds of miles toward the coast of Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. If they follow the same pattern this year, it will put them smack dab in the middle of the oil spill.

Not a lot is known about the migratory patterns of the whale shark, and they are not sure exactly how many of them make their home in the Gulf of Mexico.

The best way to get a handle on their comings and goings of the whale shark is by utilizing photographs of the spots and the bars on their sides. These patterns are as unique to the whale sharks as fingerprints are to us.

Hoffmayer has warned that the implications are far more grand than they appear to be.. “Last year we had two sighted off Florida and Alabama that were from Honduras and Belize,” Hoffmayer said. “That means these oil impacts are not only for the Gulf population, but for the Caribbean and maybe even further. The implications are pretty big here.”

He also said that the relatively high temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, and the position of the offshore Loop Current, signifies that the environmental conditions in the Gulf this year, are extremely similar to the conditions which drew the whale sharks to the same area last year.

This all adds up to big trouble for the poor whale shark.. one can only hope a solution is found quickly.

As if the Gulf of Mexico didn’t have enough problems, what with the oil slicks and tar balls, the dispersant being used to clean up the mess, may be having an adverse effect on the local marine life.

Ben Raines, an environmental reporter for the Mobile Press-Register, has been shooting video of some pretty strange going ons in the Gulf. It is widely believed that the dispersant are the root of the trouble, rather than the oil spill itself.

Ben Raines counted out over 20 sharks swimming around his tiny vessel, in 6 feet of water located off the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge. He managed to capture the silhouettes from above the water. They were so immense in number that he stuck his camera under the water for a better view, and a bunch came into focus.

Ben proceeded to film from the beach out. An incredible number of tiny fish swept by in the shallows; literally tens of hundreds anchovies could be seen piled up, their lifeless bodies splayed on the sand.

There was a shark within 100 yards, and that is just not normal. Raines is not alone in his observation of the odd shark behavior. In the past month, beach goers in Florida were shocked to find an 11 foot, 800 pound tiger shark, close to shore, swimming in the surf. The shark was acting as if exposed to oil.

This wasn’t the only shark to exhibit this odd behavior, researchers have taken note of at least two dozen deep water sharks have been discovered within six miles of the shore, far closer than normal.

It isn’t just sharks which are exhibiting this behavior but all manners of marine life are also acting off.

The reason for this has been boiled down to the dissolved oxygen pockets which are developing all over the Gulf. It is thought that it’s not just the oil that is causing this, but also the 1.5 million gallons of dispersant which BP has used to try and clear up the mess.

The reason for this is that the bacteria which break up the oil need oxygen. These bacteria take the oxygen from their surroundings, and this causes the marine life to leave the area. If they can’t leave they just die, and this is bad because then the bacteria need even more oxygen to complete the cycle and break down the decaying sea life.

There have been many arguments that P didn’t have to use dispersant in order to clean up the spill. Many people feel that there are better ways, such as burning it, skimming it, or any other multitude of ways.

It is unclear why an alternative method for cleaning up the spill, however it is quite clear that in attempting to clean up the spill using dispersant, they haven’t really helped the matter, but rather compounded it. Sure they were taking care of the problem on the surface, but not below it.. Lending credence to the saying “Out of sight.. Out of mind…”