SARASOTA — One way to keep tabs on the real impact of the Deepwater Horizon disaster on the Gulf of Mexico, a scientific conference decided Tuesday, is to watch what happens to the lowly bait fish: the menhaden, the mullet, the sardines.
The deaths of dolphins and sea turtles due to the oil spill have garnered a lot of headlines. And there are concerns the spill may push sharks and bluefin tuna to the brink of extinction.
But they're not the basis of the gulf's food chain.
On the other hand, "the bait fish are so important to the whole ecosystem that if something happens there, it will have a cascading effect right up to the top predators," said William Hogarth, dean of the college of marine sciences at the University of South Florida.
Read the complete story from the St. Petersburg Times.