BP oil spill: Clean-up efforts along the Gulf coast

The oil-affected shoreline in the northern reaches of Louisiana's Barataria bay is ringed by booms and work boats
Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP

Work crews use booms and vacuums to clean marshland affected by oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill near Bay Jimmy, near Myrtle Grove, Louisiana
Photograph: Lee Celano/Reuters

Marsh grasses covered in oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill are seen in Bay Jimmy
Photograph: Charlie Neibergall/AP

Oil clouds the surface of Barataria Bay near Port Sulpher, Louisiana
Photograph: Sean Gardner/Getty Images

Thick crude oil from the spill. Plaquemines parish officials are using portable vacuums to slowly collect the oil at their own expense
Photograph: Erik S. Lesser/EPA

Allen Sreiy stands next to oily booms on his shrimp boat as he helps with clean-up operations
Photograph: Charlie Neibergall/AP

Workers vacuum oil along the northern shores of Barataria bay
Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP

Plaquemines Parish employee James McGee uses a portable vacuum to suck up thick crude oil in the Bay Jimmy marsh section of Barataria bay
Photograph: Erik S. Lesser/EPA

Barges with vacuum trucks are seen along the oil damaged shores in the Northern reaches of Barataria bay
Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP

A shrimp lies dead after becoming stuck in a pool of oil in Bay Jimmy
Photograph: Sean Gardner/REUTERS

US Fish & Wildlife Service information board at their temporary headquarters at Dennis Pass in the Mississippi delta near Venice, Louisiana
Photograph: Erik S. Lesser/EPA

Plaquemines Parish coastal zone management director P.J. Hahn catches an oiled sandwich tern. Biologists with the US Fish and Wildlife Service are using locals to help them find birds oiled by the BP oil spill
Photograph: Matthew Hinton/AP

An oil-stained sandwich tern
Photograph: Sean Gardner/Getty Images

Workers try to catch a brown pelican covered in oil in Rock Canal near Venice, Louisiana
Photograph: Charlie Neibergall/AP

A deep sea trawler is anchored while working as an absorbent boom supply boat in Barataria bay
Photograph: Bevil Knapp/EPA

Out of work fishermen sign up for Vessels of Opportunity - a scheme designed to give local boat operators an opportunity to assist with clean-up activities
Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP

Phillip Boudreaux fishes for catfish along a bayou in Lafourche, Louisiana. Commercial fishing, including areas in Lafourche, has been banned in much of the Gulf of Mexico after the BP oil spill
Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Embattled chief executive Tony Hayward stepped aside yesterday as US BP executive Bob Dudley was appointed the head of a new unit to manage the response and clean-up operation. Earlier in the week, protesters disrupted a speech by the company's chief of staff at a major oil conference as Hayward cancelled what would have been his first public appearance in the UK since the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began
Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

A skimming crews scoops oil out of the water not far off the coast of Perdido key, Florida
Photograph: Dan Anderson/EPA

In this satellite image, oil spreading north-east from the leaking Deepwater Horizon well is seen from Nasa's Terra satellite. The oil appears as a maze of silvery-grey ribbons in the Gulf of Mexico. Click here for more satellite images of the spill
Photograph: NASA/Getty Images