[xoxoxoBruce]

We've discussed, here in the Cellar, the stories of huge amounts of plastic in the Pacific Ocean Gyre. Apparently most of the plastic breaks down into small pieces, making a "soup" just below the surface.

Well, not all of the pieces are small...

These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks ago on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world's most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.

~cj, October 2009

Albatrosses are killing their chicks, without even realizing it.

link