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Effect of Oil Spill on Birds: A Graphical Assay of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill’s Impact on Birds

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Abstract

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was an ecologically devastating event in the Gulf of Mexico, which saw the estimated release of over 4 million barrels of oil after flowing for three months in 2010. The US Fish and Wildlife Service provided a data set of 7,229 bird records. We aimed to illustrate the important features of the data set utilizing a blend of analytics and graphics executed through traditional and cloud-based software. It is concluded from the graphs that the areas containing the greatest concentration of birds were nearest to the coasts adjacent to New Orleans and the Deepwater platform. Moreover, the result of the logistic regression confirmed what is seen in bar charts, that the Laughing Gull and Brown Pelican, among many others, were most mortally impacted by the oil spill. Furthermore, additional investigation into the morbidity impact on birds over time indicates a lagging effect. A similar lag is present in the oiling of the birds where a separate time series shows the oiled/not visibly oiled birds alternating in frequency over the collection period.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to San Francisco Chapter of the American Statistical Association (ASA) for their generous Student Travel Award. We are also grateful to the organizers of the 2011 Joint Statistical Meetings and the ASA sections of the Statistical Graphics and Statistical Computing for the opportunity to create and share our work. We also owe a special thanks to the reviewers at COST, and Professor Bruce Trumbo for all their time and careful guidance in preparing this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. California State University East Bay, 25800 Carlos Bee Boulevard, Hayward, CA, 94542, USA

    Tony Tran, Aida Yazdanparast & Eric A. Suess

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  1. Tony Tran
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  2. Aida Yazdanparast
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  3. Eric A. Suess
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Correspondence to Tony Tran.

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Tran, T., Yazdanparast, A. & Suess, E.A. Effect of Oil Spill on Birds: A Graphical Assay of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill’s Impact on Birds. Comput Stat 29, 133–140 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00180-013-0472-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00180-013-0472-z

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