Photo by Chris Jordan
What do you see in this photograph? Do you see the dead bird? All that seems to be left are feathers, bones and bits of plastic. The carcass is lying in a pristine green field without any visual evidence of human activity. Though in a state of decay, the carcass appears to be relatively intact suggesting that the bird was not killed by a predator. Could it’s death be related to the plastic? Where did the plastic come from? This is the issue which we will explore in depth this semester.
This photo is the work of Chris Jordan who documented the ubiquitous presence of plastic in the guts of dead and decaying albatrosses on Midway Island. The cause and effect relationship between the plastic and the bird deaths has not been well established despite being the subject of study for three decades. This is partly due to the ethical problems with conducting controlled experiments on plastic ingestion by albatross chicks. However, the mere presence of plastic in the guts of these birds is a testament to the impact we can have on or environment, even in remote locations far from population centers. In fact, the plastic that is found in these birds was likely picked up by adult albatrosses in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This naturally leads to the questions about where these plastics come from and how they reach the vast and remote centers of the world’s oceans.
