Birds eat incredible amounts of plastic waste with serious consequences for their health
Marine pollution: more than 90% of seabirds have traces of plastic in their bowels. And it wouldn't even be that much of a wonder, if we consider all waste which are already found only on the beaches.
In short, the birds they eat "astronomical" quantities of marine litter which they mistake for fish eggs and the areas where this sad phenomenon occurs most are those of Australia and New Zealand (with the albatross ahead).
An Australian team of scientists studied birds and marine litter and found that far more marine birds were affected than in previous estimates. The figure today is already much higher than a few decades ago, when "only" the 10% of seabirds they were found in 1980 with plastic in their organs.
Lo study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined 186 species of seabirds and analyzed information about the garbage found in their habitats, as well as feeding behavior and the body formed in such a way as to allow - despite themselves - the ingestion of plastic. The researchers also considered studies of plastic ingestion by several seabird species from 1962 to 2012.
"This is really a problem that affects every single person and their daily habits", says Boris Worm, a biology professor at Dalhousie University.
In short, Australian scholars have determined that 90% of birds have plastic in their guts and the number will increase in the coming decades if people's habits do not change. "We predict that plastics ingestion is on the rise in seabirds, [and] will reach 99% of all species by 2050."
It goes without saying that ingesting all of this plastic can lead not only to poisoning of the birds themselves, but also to intestinal blockage and other complications.
"The biggest problem - they conclude - is the rapid economic growth and the increased use of disposable plastics in many parts of the world, where waste collection and management [such as safe storage and recycling] have not grown by hand in hand ".
That is to say, waste is not disposed of well anywhere in the world. And from birds to the entire food chain you can go in the blink of an eye.
Germana Carillo
Photo Credit
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