230 Animals Die in Tar Sands Tragedy

Workers are seen with a row of oil-soaked waterfowl at Syncrude’s Mildred Lake Settling Basin, 40km north of Fort McMurray Oct. 26th 2010. Over 200 birds were euthanized after landing on the settling pond

From blogs.marketwatch.com
The Canadian Press is reporting that more than 200 birds died this week after landing on gooey, toxic tailing ponds in the Alberta oil fields — just days after oil giant Syncrude agreed to pay more than $3 millionCDN in a 2008 incident in which 1600 ducks died. This week, over 230 ducks had to be euthanized after seeking refuge, apparently from an ice storm, on Syncrude’s Mildred Lake tailings pond which, the Canadian wire service reports, contains “a thick brew of poisonous oilsands byproduct.”
Just a few hours after the Alberta government announced the incident, the Canadian Broadcast Corp. reported that similar incidents had also occurred this week at ponds owned by Shell and Suncor in the area. Suncor said “a small number” of birds had been euthanized, and Shell released a statement saying two birds had been found dead.