2 July
2019
A
wildlife photographer has captured a picture of a black skimmer bird feeding
its chick a cigarette filter on a beach in Florida, USA.
In a
Facebook post, Karen Mason said she had happened upon the pair on St Pete beach
outside Tampa last month.
She
urged: "If you smoke, please don't leave your butts behind."
The UK's
RSPB, which described the picture as "heartbreaking", says nature is
struggling to adapt to human littering.
Ms Mason
also captured another picture of the chick carrying the filter in its beak:
Birds can
mistake the filters for food and feed them to their young.
"Many
birds are curious about the things we casually discard, and will often
investigate to try and find out if something is food or not," a spokesman
for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) told the BBC.
"Sadly,
this parent has decided the cigarette butt is something to feed its chick.
"Nature
is struggling to adapt to the things we are doing to our planet; every year, we
see more animals trapped, injured or killed by man-made products. We are even
seeing litter being used as nesting material.
"Unfortunately
for many people, littering seems harmless, at worst it makes an area look
untidy; however, heartbreaking images like reveal the true impact of littering
on our wildlife."
Cigarette
filters are usually made of plastic fibres (cellulose acetate), and take years
to break down in the environment.
They
are the most common item of rubbish collected from beaches globally,
according to conservationists.
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