NEW ORLEANS - Our nation’s pet stores have come to the rescue with the announcement that shipments of millions of small household pets would be soon arriving to the gulf region.
Cleanup teams from across the area have been complaining that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been slow to act in replacing the dwindling number of terns, gulls, turtles, and other gulf creatures that have been sopping up the growing volume of crude oil spewing into gulf waters at the rate of up to 4.2 million gallons a day.
Their demands appear to have been answered as pet shops from across the country mobilized and shipped hundreds of truckloads of parakeets, cockatiels, box turtles and other small pets. The first delivery of these super absorbent creatures is expected by the end of the week and is being hailed as a Godsend by cleanup crews who had all but exhausted local populations of coastal animals.
Rear Adm. Mary E. Landry, the Coast Guard’s on-scene coordinator for the Louisiana oil spill disaster, expressed gratitude to the nation’s pet industry for providing the much-needed mopping up resources.
“Petco and PetSmart have been superb corporate partners in the response to this tragedy,” Admiral Landry said. “We ran out of ibis and marsh ducks earlier this week so this couldn’t have come at a better time.”
Those working to recover marshes and beaches on the gulf coast expect their task to be much easier with the arrival of small songbirds, for example, which have shown to be one-time use, easy to handle, and are disposable.
“The larger birds work great. I mean you can wring out a pelican and reuse it a couple of times but they are really heavy and frankly it’s been tough to find any around here lately,” said Roger Woolsey, a volunteer from nearby Gulfport. “Parakeets and budgies are excellent because they can fit in one hand and you know that you’ve sopped up as much as they’ll take when they stop chirping.”
Turtles, tortoises, and terrapins are also great oil collectors, as evidenced by these large sea creatures washing up on the shores of the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts this week. But with the apparent absence of these majestic and graceful creatures lately, crews were thrilled to have thousands of box and mud turtles to battle the environmental disaster facing them.
“I don’t know where it goes, but these guys can ingest up to twice their weight in a wide variety of petroleum products,” Woolsey said. “Now we can get some serious cleanup done.”
As the oil spill disaster continues to wreck havoc, Admiral Landry expects they will need to tap into more cleaning resources and has requested that other animals be shipped in. Within the next couple of weeks, sea otters, seals, and northern sea birds will be captured and brought in from Prince William Sound in Alaska.
“Those little guys did such a great job during the Exxon Valdez spill,” Admiral Landry said. “We thought we’d give them another chance to be in the spotlight.”
JB Goodbody frequently has thoughts in his head that makes him smile. Were they made public at the moment they poofed into existence, without some form of structured outlet such as satire, these thoughts would cause significant distress among his friends, family and coworkers. This is why he is here. 
Superb. God, I wish I had a pelican to wring out right now.
i love to visit pet shops because i love to see cute little puppies~’.