Ingesting plastic is a serious threat to marine birds, leading to blocked digestive systems and compromised kidney and endocrine functions that can be fatal. Most shearwaters, albatrosses, petrels, and storm-petrels have an exceptional sense of smell that allows them to find food across huge expanses of open sea. Enticed by deceptive odors that smell of food, birds swallow plastic pieces — both large and small — and will even regurgitate them for their offspring. Ingesting plastic distracts birds from real food and can pose a lethal threat.
String-like plastics such as fishing line and netting can become wrapped around body parts and restrict movement. Designed for transparency in water, monofilament line and netting entangle birds when used for fishing, and for years after if they are discarded or left in the water. Many species are drawn to thread-like plastics as potential nesting material. Once at the nest, this tangled plastic threatens both adult birds and their young.
SPLASh is creating a cleaner environment for people, birds, and other wildlife in the greater Houston-Galveston region through community science, education, and outreach.
Urge Congress to advance policy solutions that combat plastic pollution and save seabirds!
Plastic is everywhere. It has been found in the stomachs of seabirds thousands of miles from land and microscopic fragments have been recorded as literally raining down in protected areas in the western U.S.
Waterbirds are among Virginia's superlative birds, including some of the largest (pelicans and swans), most colorful (ducks), most ornamentally plumed (egrets and herons), and most exciting to watch (skimmers skimming, terns diving, ibises flapping over marshes at sunrise or sunset). Most are...
