At this time five years ago, Cat Island, off the coast of Louisiana, was getting ready for breeding season. In spring, rare and endangered birds, like brown pelicans, come from all over to nest on this 5.5-acre spit in the sea, the Gulf region's fourth-largest rookery. After hatching, chicks would imprint on the place and later return to lay their own eggs in its eight-foot mangroves. Then on April 20, 2010, disaster struck. The Deepwater Horizon blowout began to spew oil into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days straight.

As this National Geographic video shows, oil infiltrated Cat Island, killing the root system of its mangrove forest. Without those roots to hold the island together, the sea began to wash the island’s sediment away. Cat Island is disappearing. The birds that now return to their hatching grounds have nowhere to raise their chicks. Instead of flying elsewhere, they just don’t breed at all. If only this island had nine lives.

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