Albatrosses feed on giant garbage patch

11/11/2009

Have you read about the gigantic patch of garbage - mostly plastic - floating in the Pacific Ocean? When I say gigantic, I mean huge, ginormous, massive, sprawling, mind-blowingly large. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch actually consists of two patches, in fact: the Western Garbage Patch east of Japan and west of Hawaii, and the Eastern Garbage Patch between Hawaii and California. The Eastern patch alone is twice the size of Texas. Holy mackeroli.

Though the two patches lie 6,000 miles apart, a current called the Subtropical Convergence Zone connects them. Each plastic patch swirl in gyres due to ocean currents, and has created an ocean "desert" devoid of most life. Learning about this issue is part of why I chose to take the No Plastics Pledge, as I mentioned in my first post to this blog, The Great Turtle Race is On! It took me several months to remember my reusable grocery bags from my car, but I finally got the hang of it! I have also replaced my use of water bottles with a thermos I carry with me and send my kids to school with lunch boxes instead of plastic bags. I haven't totally eliminated plastic but am working on reducing my use of it day by day.

So that brings me to today's topic. In the for Discovery Channel Animal News article, Remote Albatrosses Feed on Ocean Garbage Patch, Jennifer Viegas reports on a recently published scientific study that shows these giant oceanic seabirds feed their babies plastic from the Western Garbage Patch! Laysan albatrosses nesting on the remote Kure atoll in the Pacigfic Ocean feed their chicks ten times more plastic than those nesting in Oahu, Hawaii. The reason? The adults forage on the garbage patch, and inadvertently bring back plastic trash to their chicks. The plastic can kill birds when it punctures their intestinal tract, or blocks digestion. Toxins from the plastic are suspected in wildlife cancers and disease, as well.