As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Friday 22 March 2019

Balloons are the deadliest plastic to seabirds


15/03/2019
A new study has found that balloons are the highest-risk plastic debris item for seabirds, being 32 times more likely to kill them than ingesting hard plastics.
Researchers from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC) looked at the cause of death of 1,733 seabirds from 51 species and found that one in three of the birds had ingested marine debris. The data showed that a seabird ingesting a single piece of plastic had a 20 per cent chance of mortality, rising to 50 per cent for nine items and 100 per cent for 93 items.
Led by former IMAS-CSIRO PhD student Dr Lauren Roman and published in the journal Scientific Reports, the study found that although hard plastic accounts for the vast majority of debris ingested, it is far less likely to kill than soft plastics such as balloons.
Dr Roman commented: "Marine debris ingestion is now a globally recognised threat. However, the relationship between the amount or type of debris that a seabird ingests and mortality remains poorly understood. Among the birds we studied the leading cause of death was blockage of the gastrointestinal tract, followed by infections or other complications caused by gastrointestinal obstructions.
"Although soft plastics accounted for just 5 per cent of the items ingested, they were responsible for more than 40 per cent of the mortalities. Balloons or balloon fragments were the marine debris most likely to cause mortality, and they killed almost one in five of the seabirds that ingested them.
"As similar research into plastic ingestion by sea turtles has found, it appears that while hard plastic fragments may pass quickly through the gut, soft plastics are more likely to become compacted and cause fatal obstructions."

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