One of Australia’s leading wildlife biologists is warning that seabirds at Montague Island off Narooma would have bellies full of plastic.
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Professor of Marine Ecology at Macquarie University, Rob Harcourt is facility leader, animal tracking, integrated marine observing system in the Department of Biological Sciences.
He has worked with the seabirds of Montague Island for many years and is familiar with the growing of problem of loose, floating plastic in the world’s oceans and how that pollution is impacting on marine animals.
Prof. Harcourt is expected in March or April next year to release 25-year modelling about the effects of climate change on the strength of the East Australian Current, and how that impacts the whole ecosystem on the South Coast.
While plastic pollution in the ocean is a global problem, all the research indicated that South East Australia was one of the worst affected areas, Prof. Harcourt said.
“There is no doubt that trash is a problem, and plastic is a major problem for oceans,” he said. “There is a large colony of seabirds breeding on Montague Island and plastics look a lot like their food items.
“They pick up the plastics instead because they look like fish. They take it back to feed their chicks, and the chicks starve because their stomachs are full of plastic. It’s a serious, serious problem.”
He said it particularly affected the migratory seabirds, such as shearwaters, also called muttonbirds, and terns.
The short-tailed shearwater birds migrate 10,000 kilometres from the Bering Sea, between Alaska and Japan, to Australian shores in late September to nest.
They have eaten little on their journey and are exhausted by the flight and so have been known to die in mass numbers.
But the plastic in their stomachs is a ticking timebomb for each bird, building up, eventually taking its toll and killing the bird.
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