My favorite line:

“Meanwhile our little bag has encountered one of nature’s most deadly killers, the Teacup Yorkie. Once the Yorkie has locked onto its victim there is very little hope of survival. But using its superior size and deft maneuvering our little bag manages to escape the Yorkie’s talons and flee for its life.”

So grab your gear and get outside

Head to a park close at hand

And dig your toes into the sand

If fishing or trapping is a hobby of yours

You must remember to respect the shores

Rules and regulations are set for a reason

So be sure to pay attention to the season

If heed my warnings, you do not

If is you my friend, who might get caught!

Happy Parks Day Canada!

This was something I couldn’t resist though. As BP execs sit with their fingers and toes crossed, hoping their most recent attempt to plug the Deepwater Horizon gusher with golf balls and old tires works,  a Twitter prankster is keeping more than 83 thousand followers laughing at their expense.

Whoever it is behind the account has not only 10 times the amount of followers as BP themselves, but they’re also branded. Who knows how many people think these comments are actually coming from BP.

As you can see – it would be easy to mistaken them for the company themselves. With both accounts unverified and branded, first glance tells you you’ve found BP’s global PR team:

Ah! But then have a look at some of their tweets. You might think it’s a little strange that they would say:

But then completely improbable that they would say:

Or:

Or:

And our favorite:

Others have taken the BP tweets to the next level – creating great ready-made billboards! How kind. Check them out here. Seriously. They’re the best.

So for our readers today, just remember: #bpcares. And for BP: for gosh sakes… verify your account!

Suggested cities included Manhattan or Paris, but I thought I would see what it would look like if a disaster of this magnitude hit St. John’s, Newfoundland. Hibernia is an offshore oil field only 315 km southeast of St. John’s and hosts one of the largest offshore oil rigs in North America. It is expected to produce 1,200 million barrels of oil in it’s lifetime. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is polluting at a rate of 5,000 to 25,000 barrels a day right now.

This image gives a pretty good perspective of what a disaster like this could look like for Newfoundland. It doesn’t look like it would take long for it to fill up the narrows, or beautiful Conception Bay where Humpback Wales visit during their migration.

Hopefully Danny Williams and company are watching this with eagle eyes, eager to adopt crisis management best practices to protect the Grand Banks of Newfoundland as they continue to harvest oil from not just Hibernia, but White Rose, Terra Nova and the upcoming Hebron which last I heard was suppose to lift off this year.

One thing I always wondered about was the large reservoir tanks outside the compound, and I didn’t figure out their purpose until today!  Fisheries and Oceans COOGER (Centre for Offshore Oil, Gas and Energy Research) Executive Director Ken Lee was featured on Daily Planet at the BIO using the tanks which turned out to be wave and current simulators. He was testing the effect of oil dispersants. The tanks test the effectiveness of breaking down an oil slick when churned around. Lee also placed small Cod fish in the tank to see not only the immediate effects from the dispersed oil, but to take blood and organ samples to try and determine if the fish would suffer long-term ailments, including reproductive disorders.

Most of the media coverage on the BP oil disaster is focusing primarily on the effects it will have on sea birds and shoreline fish, which are the ones most immediately threatened, and often killed by the pollutants. But it’s important to consider the unseen victims, microorganisms aren’t as compelling to show in the media.