Halfway between San Francisco and Hawaii, a mother scours a mass of garbage twice the size of the state of Texas for treats to take home to her child. A bright yellow Lego block catches her attention. She scoops up the toy and heads back to its home.
When the baby sees her coming, it begins to whistle and click. She leans over the side of her baby's crib. It opens its mouth and cries to show her it is hungry. She feeds the plastic toy to her baby, followed by a treasure trove of tangled fishing line, a red bottle cap, and fingers torn from a broken doll.
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Nearly half of all albatross chicks die each year from dehydration and starvation. Most of these chicks are well-fed. Their stomachs are filled with twice as much plastic as the stomachs of chicks that die from other causes.
- The albatross is the largest of all the seabirds.
- Its wingspan can reach 11 feet.
- These birds spend about 85% of their time at sea, eating fish and sleeping on the water.
- They drink seawater.
- Between chicks dying from dehydration and starvation (caused by ingesting plastic?) and adults drowning at the end of fish hooks, the population of some species have decreased by as much as 90%, many have declined by 40-50%.
Want to know more? Sources:
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/albatross.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-ocean2aug02,0,3130914.story
http://www.kcc.org.nz/birds/albatross.asp
Special thanks to Tom Hunter http://curmudgeon99.gather.com> for the idea on how to position this piece.
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Comments: 19
Are we on this planet absolutely crazy? We cut down trees. We dump oil in the oceans.
Now you tell us that the manificent albatrosses are being killed by us?
It's incredible and it's disgusting.
I'm wondering, why doesn't the mama know it's not edible? I would have though that she would only bring her baby something she herself would eat, like fish. Must be a scavenger bird. Very sad.
Makes you rethink the meaning behind the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner...