depressing pictures of dead birds

[watertrade]

http://chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=11

[GingaNinja]

thats intense, crazy shit.

thanks for posting that

[snaps]

thats horrible, poor birds.

[ballzac]

Looks potentially set up to me. I may just be overly cynical, but I'd like to see references to this phenomenon elsewhere if I am to believe it.

[Chiral]

Kind of agree with zac with some of them being set up...almost like it's someones idea of art or something. I'm not sure a birds stomach is that large that it could sustain so much plastic, I might be wrong though, and if I am then it's pretty sad that those bottle caps and bits of plastic probably came out of storm water drains after being carelessly discarded by people on land. All those shots are of cormorants or albatros are they...?

The interesting thing to note is that the bird doesn't learn that after ingesting one piece of plastic not to do it again.

Edited November 18, 2009 by Chiral

[~shameless~]

Looks potentially set up to me. I may just be overly cynical, but I'd like to see references to this phenomenon elsewhere if I am to believe it.

Yeah when i saw it on tv a few nights ago i sort of thought, " hang on that means alot of the birds in port phillip would be full of plastic as well. " i aint no biologist but am stating that most pieces would pass through before it got that bad im sure,

I dont thinks its that severe in MOST CASES as well, how could a cormorant or seagull gobble down a 80mm x 40mm off cut of pipex 0r pvc

Cant wait too see the dead killer whales full of thongs.

I cant remember for the life of me where i heard this but some hopeful people were toy'ing with the idea that it might be actually profitable, fishing the large amounts of plastic that float in the mid pacific above hawaii,

get all the bags and shit and recycle them to make other stuff from the hydrocarbons

[bℓσωηG]

ban plastic? or at least make a plastic that doesnt float ? or dissolves? WTF that is pretty saad , but still quite arty and colorful , i think i saw a syringe there some where hmmm....

[woof woof woof]

port philip is not anywhere near the pacific gyre.

i have seen allot of fish with plastic in their stomace contents. (avid open ocean fisherman)

+ i have had sea birds like boobies grab the plastic fishing lures being pulled behind the boat many times. so it does not supprise me that that this happens.

from the docu's I have seen, this is very real. I am sure that if you do some more personal research you will find that it is a tragic truth.

[alkatrope]

It does look pretty fake..

[mutant]

almost like it's someones idea of art or something. I'm not sure a birds stomach is that large that it could sustain so much plastic

Hahaha, this is quite weird. Quess what: the stomach indeed could not sustain that plastic

why would someone set such a thing up?

[~shameless~]

port philip is not anywhere near the pacific gyre.

i have seen allot of fish with plastic in their stomace contents. (avid open ocean fisherman)

+ i have had sea birds like boobies grab the plastic fishing lures being pulled behind the boat many times. so it does not supprise me that that this happens.

from the docu's I have seen, this is very real. I am sure that if you do some more personal research you will find that it is a tragic truth.

Your right, but i reckon after storms it becomes alot more trashy (over a small area), its deffinantly smalller than the pacific, its just that i dont notice plastic in dead birds rotting on the shore present in that way in nature, not that im implying i look at dead birds all the time, but i get out,

And yeah seagulls really do love having a go at soft plastic lures, to aviod this vary the speed you retrieve your lure at and the birds most of the time spot its a fake.

[educate]

I thought it was interesting how some birds have similar coloured objects or similar collection of things in them. One bird, for example, has lots of bottle tops. Another has mostly blue things.

The skeptic in me did say "what if it is set up?", but they do have big mouths and guts. They also probably don't consider there to be indigestible objects in water. There brains are geared for bright objects being food and not floating plastic rubbish.

[Teotzlcoatl]

Man that is horrible!

[tripsis]

This is unfortunately true, it has been recorded before and is a fairly common occurence. I highly doubt that those pictures are set up. It is very sad to see what is happening and many of us are responsible for it it some way. If anyone here litters, think of where that litter can end up.

For more info:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/pos...-any-2009-10-27

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/ocea...tics_albatross/

Or to just see the video:

 

[Neoshaman]

In these kind of areas one would imagine the main culprits for dumping rubbish would be various shipping operators while i appreciate the fact that these items float that volume in remote area doesn't make a lot of sense unless it coming off a lot of boats moving near the region, I'm sure i have read articles of this nature at some point

[tripsis]

No doubt dumping from ships is a large contributor, but ocean currents have a way of channeling rubbish to specific areas, creating literal islands of floating plastic and other junk. I don't know whether the area/areas where this is happening is one of those places, but it could be.

I recently watched a documentary about plastic and it was pretty sad. These guys went out to remote areas of the oceans and skimmed the waters for plastic. They found a very significant percentage of the plastic floating in the oceans was in the form of resin beads. These resin beads are the basis to all plastics - that is at that stage, they can become anything - resin is not a differentiated plastic. The first thing that petrochemicals are made into on the way to becoming more usuable plastics is resin - it has virtually no use other than to become other plastics like polypropylene, etc. What this means is that when these resin beads are initially created in the factory, a percentage of them are lost down the drains, to find there way into remote areas of the ocean. The worst thing about it is that they were never ever used as anything, it's just outright pollution. So don't underestimate how far pollution can travel.

It's a similar scenario to pollution in the form of fine particles and gases. They get taken up into the atmosphere here, where it is warm, travel on air currents to the artic where it is cold and then they precipiatate and fall back to earth, causing extremely high rates of cancer among the Inuits, where is should by rights be one of the cleanest places on Earth.

[Neoshaman]

its sad how much we let the oil giants and various multi-nationals destroy our world for their own short-term finacial benefit personally i would like to see the management & CEO s of such companies die a very slow and agonising death along with any politician that has allowed this to happen only greed prospers in our world we need to take back what we have rightful entitlement to and they don't trouble is there are so many gutlesss fucking wankers in the world that sit by so caught up in their own universe and do nothing we let a small minority destroy what we all own and even worse deny our children and their children the chance to experience many things we still take for granted

[tripsis]

It's easy to blame the big corporations and they are undoubtedly responsible for many atrocities committed against this planet - Monsanto is a good example of an utterly evil corporation - but we are all still responsible too. The choices we make about what we buy make a difference, the opinions we express to others and the amount we are outspoken against things we don't agree with can all lead to change. It's no good to sit on a fencepost and watch the world pass by. If we want change, we have to make an effort to make it happen, otherwise those in power will go unchecked.