Effects of Oil Spills on WildlifeHow do you clean up wildlife after an oil spill? Oil spills are dangerous because they have long-lasting effects across all life cycles. It is important to consider all species affected by an oil spill. Oil spills directly impact the carbon cycle. They also influence food chains in water and on land. Oil affects animals in four ways: physical contact, feeding, respiration, and absorption (Effects of Oil Spills on Wildlife, 2010). The type of oil also contributes to determining the severity of the spill. Weather also plays a role in cleaning up a spill. There are four related articles that show there is real cause for concern. What will the spill kill? It concerned the animals affected by the spill. A tale of two spills: new scientific and policy implications of an emerging new pattern of oil spills. This article talks about the areas of the ocean that are affected differently depending on the spill, as well as the different ways to clean up spills. Oil, seabirds and science: This article discusses the effects on seabird population, reproduction, habitat and recovery after an oil spill. There Will Be Birds: Images of Oil Disasters in the Twentieth Century. This article talks about the different types of oil spills. The latest article is about achieving 100% oil removal from feathers using magnetic particle technology. The article explains how to remove all the oil from the feathers. For many years, the primary use for cleaning up wildlife has been the use of detergents and hot water (Dao, Ngeh, Bigger, & Orbell, 2006). The hypothesis of my experiment is: hot soapy water will remove motor oil from a feather more effectively than plain hot water. Materials and Methods In the... middle of paper... it might work, it would be a lot more labor intensive than using hot soapy water. Conclusion Oil spill effects have population, reproductive, and habitat dimensions. Oil spills can take a long time to clean up, which affects what birds have to eat and where they can go without being disturbed by humans. Some places were breeding grounds for the birds and so it was necessary to find other places to breed while land reclamation could lead to lower breeding levels. Over the years there have been changes in how we handle oil spills. “Oil out of control meant more and more oil in the sea,” as stated in There Will be Birds (Morse, 2012). The penalties to the fragile balance of life in the Gulf's unprotected ecosystems and the larger cycles of nature that maintain life in the Gulf are as limitless as they are devastating (Begley, 2010).