Effects of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill on Fishing in the Gulf of Mexico

Abstract

On April 20, 2010 the wellhead of the Deepwater Horizon (DWH), an offshore oilrig operated by British Petroleum (BP) in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM), exploded causing 4.9 million barrels (roughly 780,000 cubic meters) of oil to leak into the surrounding waters before finally being sealed in September of the same year. The spill, centered at 28.7°N, 88.4°W, affected fisheries throughout the northern GoM. While there is no direct evidence of a decrease in commercial fish populations, several of the collected species showed injuries related to oil spills, such as lesions and rotting fins. I used Automatic Identification System (AIS) data from the exactEarth database to document fishing practices in the northern GoM during the first quarter of 2016. I used a geospatial approach to compare fishing vessel behaviors in the present with baseline data from before the DWH spill to see if there has been a noticeable change in the location of high volume fishing in the GoM. What I found is that for the blue crab and white shrimp fisheries there hasn’t been a noticeable long-term change, while the royal red shrimp, gulf menhaden, brown shrimp, and red snapper fisheries still seem to be feeling the effects of the oil spill.